


Vesta House Gang: The Toxic Positivity

by empoleonz0



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Demigods, Future Fic, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 35,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25971628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empoleonz0/pseuds/empoleonz0
Summary: The year is 2033. Over two decades have passed since Percy Jackson defeated Kronos and the world is a much different place now. For demigods, who are no longer ignored by the gods or oppressed by society for their differences, there's never been a better time to be alive. The question is, what happens now?
Comments: 15
Kudos: 20





	1. Setup: Charge

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much for reading. I would very much appreciate feedback of any kind tell me what you liked or disliked about my fic or just any thoughts in general that could help me improve as a writer.

"That's not good," Arthur muttered to himself as he stared at his phone.

His older sister Frankie peered over his shoulder to see what he was looking at. Behind her, everyone was getting ready to leave. "I don't see anything?"

That was the problem: the screen was blank. His phone should have charged overnight but seemed to have run out of battery instead. 

"Have you tried pressing the power button?" his older brother Dallas offered helpfully.

"Yeah it was the first thing I tried," Arthur replied sincerely, his brother's sarcasm going over his head. Actually he was thinking that he already knew the problem was with his charger. He had told his parents, Will and Eliza, about this yesterday. However between their work (Will was a veterinarian; Eliza was an aerospace engineer) and the fact that they had six children to look after, he knew that they were busy and that it would be some time before he would actually get a new one.

Maybe cleaning out the charging port would help, he thought. He looked around for a paperclip, found one, untwisted it, inserted the tip into the charging port, and tried to clean it out.

There was a sharp tingling sensation at his fingertips. Expecting to be electrocuted, Arthur instinctively dropped the phone and the unbent paperclip. But nothing happened other than that he now looked like an idiot in front of the whole family .

"Jeez Arthur, just let me do it," said his other older brother Cillian as he reached down and picked up the phone. He pushed the power button; the phone turned on.

Arthur was baffled. "Wait-"

"It's like Dallas said, you just have to press the power button. C'mon Arth you're thirteen, you should know these things by now," Cillian said with a wink as he handed Arthur back his phone.

"But..." Arthur trailed off as he picked up his phone. The battery was completely charged. But he was sure he had tried turning it on earlier?

Well there was no time to think about it now, he had to get ready for school. Now that Frankie was back from college for the summer, their mom had asked her, as the oldest sibling, to pick up and drop off Arthur and his youngest sister Bryony at junior high for her while their dad dropped the boys off at high school. Just for their last week of school, she had said. And although she wasn't a bad sister, Frankie tended to get impatient.

Arthur grabbed his backpack and ran outside, passing Cillian and Dallas as they fought for the passenger seat to their dad's car, and hopped into the back of Frankie's car next to Bryony; the three of them took off.

As Frankie dropped him and his sister off, Arthur couldn't help but wonder if anyone at school noticed how strange they looked. Between their varying hair colors and the fact that Frankie was much older than the other two, they didn't look like they were siblings. In fact the differences were even more apparent when all six of them were together, especially with Arthur's oldest brother Erasmus, who was noticeably darker than everyone else.

The reason for this was that they had all been adopted, their biological parents victims of a terrible pandemic that had swept the world. Arthur was only a newborn baby at the time so he didn't remember any of it, but he had been told that there had been a worldwide quarantine for over two years, during which everyone who went outside had to wear masks. When he mentioned his background, people typically responded with pity over the fact that he never got to know his real parents, which Arthur found strange. To him, Will and Eliza were his real parents and he liked being a part of this big family where everyone looked different from one another. Sometimes though, he did wonder what his biological parents had been like.

Arthur made his way through a sea of students towards his locker. Along the way, he noticed that he was attracting weird looks. That was unusual; Arthur was one of those kids that tended to go unnoticed. He wasn't one of the popular kids in some clique, nor was he one of the unpopular kids who was shunned and bullied; Arthur simply was.

"Hey you've got some stuff on you."

Arthur felt something brush the back of neck, followed by another sharp tingle like the one from this morning. Behind him, someone let out a surprised yelp and he turned around. He now stood face-to-face with a dark-haired girl. Apart from her name, Valerie, and the fact that she was one of the popular girls, Arthur didn't really know anything about her. She looked embarrassed to have been caught touching him.

"You have some fluff or something covering you," she explained hastily. He looked down at his body and was surprised to find that it was indeed covered in "fluff or something." It certainly explained the strange looks. He brushed off the dust at the front while Valerie covered his back.

"Thanks..." said Arthur, feeling more than a little embarrassed that a girl was brushing dust off his shirt in front of the whole school. Occupied by his embarrassment, he failed to notice when his fingers tingled again as he opened his locker and how several people next to him suddenly snatched their hands back from their lockers.

The first class of the day was science. His teacher started class with a surprise announcement: as an end-of-the-year activity, they would each get to dissect a cow eye while identifying whatever parts they could.

Arthur headed to the front of the class and got his tray, his dissection tools, and of course, his cow eye, which smelled strongly of preservatives. The other students were already at their seats, some of them carefully cutting out parts of the cow eye, some of them messing around and threatening to either throw them at their friends or even eat them, and some of them just plain grossed out, reluctant to touch the cow eye or cut it open for fear of what they might see.

Meanwhile, Arthur was getting lost in his thoughts as he aimlessly poked and prodded the cow eye with the scalpel to make it look like he was doing something. So far, it had been a pretty weird day. First, there was the thing with Cillian and his phone. He was certain that he had at least tried turning on his phone first before assuming it was out of batteries. Then of course there was that other thing with getting covered in fluff; that had been pretty weird too. He tried to think of anything else today that qualified as "pretty weird."

There was another sharp tingle, the 4th one this morning. This one was followed by an unpleasant smell and a low sizzling noise. Arthur looked down.

The cow eye appeared to have been burnt, its fluids were bubbling slightly and the whole thing was giving off a thin wisp of smoke.

Okay. That was _definitely_ "pretty weird."

Arthur picked up the cow eye, unsure of what to do. Well he was probably going to get in trouble for this, even more so because he had no way of explaining how it happened and his teacher would assume he was lying.

He raised his hand. "Mr. Darwin? I uh...messed up my cow eye."

"That's okay," his teacher replied from his desk. He didn't even look up from his computer. "Just turn in what you've got."

That was definitely out of the question. "Can't I just get another one?"

Now his teacher looked up from his computer, one eyebrow raised. "Uh...yeah sure I guess. They're in Mr. Mendel's classroom, you know which one that is right?"

As a matter of fact, he did; it was the other science classroom down the hall where all the lab supplies were kept. Arthur got up and left the classroom, tossing the ruined cow eye into the trash bin on his way out. He headed towards Mr. Mendel's classroom, wondering how this day could get any weirder. He quickly got his answer.

At the end of the hall, the double doors leading outside opened and 5 people walked into school. No wait, not people. They had red glowing eyes, pale skin, and flaming hair. Each had one leg that looked like it was made of bronze or copper and another leg that looked like the leg of some kind of hoofed animal. In addition to all of this, they were all teenage girls, teenage girls wearing loose fitting brand name tops and denim shorts. They were vampires, teenage vampire girls with...robot and animal legs.

A million thoughts flashed through Arthur's mind. Were they real? They looked real. Wait vampires exist? Why were they dressed like they're from the 2000s? Why there's no way vampires exist. Could they be dressing up? But Halloween was months from now. If they weren't real, why were high schoolers at the junior high? What was going on?

The teenage girls looked straight at Arthur and grinned, revealing fangs as well. One of them even snarled a bit. Arthur felt a kind of impulse kick in, overriding all the other other thoughts he had and replaced them with two simple ones: 1) the teenage vampire girls were real, and 2) they wanted to kill him. 

He immediately turned around, nearly tripping over himself, and ran for the stairwell. he wasn't really thinking about what to do other than that he knew he needed to get away from them. but just as he was about to turn into the stairwell, he crashed into someone.

It was Valerie.


	2. Setup: Instinct

Valerie woke up the next day feeling...weird. Like really weird. Even weirder than that one time when Chad Williams found a hot cheeto that resembled Don Cheadle and held an auction during lunch for it; "Don Cheeto" ended up getting sold to Kyle Murphy for $10. Yeah...that had definitely been really weird.

To begin with, Valerie woke up...on her own. In fact, she had woken up right before her alarm had been about to go off. Usually, she'd wake up to her phone's alarm, turn it off, then go back to sleep until her dad came to wake her up, just as he was about to right now.

"Val!" her dad cried as he opened the door, "how many times do I have to tell you not to go back to sleep after the- oh you're awake." He looked stunned for a moment then struggled to regain composure. "Well...good. It's nice to see you waking up responsibly for once." Then he awkwardly turned on his heel and left, muttering something about puberty.

"Yeah that's right! Me. Responsible." Valerie thought to herself smugly, and then the realization of what had just happened sunk in. How did she know her dad was about to walk in? Probably because that's what he always did? Yeah that must have been it. In fact, now that she thought about it, it was pretty obvious-

"Val! Breakfast is ready!"

Breakfast was always Valerie's favorite part of the day, especially when her dad made waffles, her favorite food, like he had today. As Valerie changed into her clothes, grabbed her backpack, and dashed down the stairs, she wondered in the back of her mind how she'd known that. The smell? Still, it'd seemed strange, as if her intuition had told her what she smelled before she could consciously comprehend the smell. She brushed the thought aside as she sat down at the breakfast table and quickly made what she called a "waffle taco," which was literally just a waffle with syrup on it that was folded in half. She grabbed it, eagerly bit in, then suddenly stopped. There was a piece of hair in her food.

That was odd. Valerie's father was usually too careful to let something like this happen. This much had been apparent ever since Valerie was little. Valerie's father had always had a cautious approach to raising Valerie, as if he were afraid that raising her in a household with only a single father would mess her up. Fortunately, Valerie never had any interest in "girly" things and was perfectly fine with growing up not knowing how to do her hair. Valerie was sometimes curious about her mother but when she tried to ask her father about her, he would only answer mysteriously, "she was a goddess, a literal goddess." As a child, this would mystify Valerie, but as a pre-teen she would roll her eyes at the cheesiness and vagueness of such a statement.

Valerie gingerly reached into her mouth to pulled the hair out; as she did so, she felt a sharp pain on the tip of her finger as if an arm hair had been ripped out. "Ow!" Instinctively, she put her finger in her mouth...and found another hair? Before Valerie could think too much about it though, her dad told her to hurry up. She gulped down the rest of her waffle taco, grabbed her bike, then set out to school. The weather had abruptly changed since yesterday. Instead of being hot and sunny, today was cold and the sky was dark and overcast, as if it were about to rain. In fact, the clouds were so dark, it seemed as if it should have been raining, but the clouds were somehow being "held back" unnaturally. "Huh, that's a weird way to look at it" Valerie thought, somewhat surprised at herself, as she slid into the school's bicycle rack.

Valerie made her way through the sea of students towards her locker. She was greeted with a series of 'Hi's and 'Good morning's. This wasn't unusual, as Valerie was one of those kids that everyone "sort of knew" and liked and would talk to from time to time. For example, this morning some girl named Maddie she barely knew asked her how her day was even though school had barely started.

"Oh you know it's fine..." Valerie replied without really paying attention. Someone was right her; it was probably Alex, who liked to start each day by sneaking up behind Valerie and tapping her on the shoulder opposite to the side he was on. This typically worked but today, Valerie saw it coming and reached behind to grab his wrist before he could do it.

"...just a normal day I guess," Valerie finished before continuing her way down the hall. Maddie and Alex exchanged some very confused looks.

And finally, just before class, she tried to help a stranger, a boy named Arthur but didn't know anything else about. For her selflessness, she received a massive shock; literally she had been shocked with static electricity. Arthur also seemed to act a bit strange when she helped clean the back of shirt. What else was Valerie supposed to do though? He was covered in hair and dust and...car lint? Seriously though, that boy had the worst case of static electricity she had ever come across...that is, if people had "cases" of static electricity. Even if she hadn't been getting these strange "revelations" all day, this alone would have made today the weirdest day ever.

Her first class was math class; having completed the Algebra curriculum a few weeks ago, their teacher, Ms. Gauss, had spent the past few weeks preparing them for next year's Geometry class. Despite having excelled in Algebra, Valerie now found herself floundering, as Geometry was based more on logic and intuition, which she apparently lacked.

"Valerie can you come up here and do this proof?"

"No," she thought to herself as she got up from her desk. Although math was one of Valerie's best subjects, she hadn't been paying attention at all. She stared at the problem on the SMART board dumbly, trying to reason it out. Then, she snatched the SMART board pen and started writing.

"Well...these angles are the same...and that's the midpoint so these sides are the same...and since these lines are parallel then these angles are also the same...so these two triangles are the same."

Before Valerie knew it, she was done. She looked at Ms. Gauss, certain she had gotten it wrong as usual even, though somehow she felt she got it right. Instead of correcting her however, she just gave her a look as if she thought Valerie was playing a trick on her. "Yes that's correct Valerie...though next time you should use the actual names of the postulates and theorems and remember that angles and polygons aren't 'the same', they are 'congruent'." Valerie hastily nodded in agreement and grinned sheepishly as she scurried back to her seat, wondering what had just happened.

There was a tapping on her shoulder and Valerie turned towards the boy sitting behind her.

"I wasn't ch- oh. What?"

"There's a loose thread from your shirt? It's on your hand."

"Oh. Yeah. I knew that."

She turned back around and looked down. There was indeed a loose thread at the tip of her left index finger. She traced along it her other hand, searching for the source of the thread, only to find that it was loose on the other end too. She shook her hand to shake the string off...only to find that it wasn't actually loose on the first end; the string was apparently stuck to her finger. She pulled but it wouldn't come off. She tried again, harder this time...and the string grew longer. Valerie blinked. She pulled hard again and again, and each time the string grew longer; Valerie sat at her desk stunned, looking at the now fairly large pile of string in her lap. She looked around to see if anybody had been paying attention, balled up the string into her left hand, which she shoved into her pocket, then raised her right hand.

"Yes Valerie?" Ms. Gauss asked. Though she didn't look it, Valerie somehow knew she was annoyed.

"Can I go to the bathroom?" There she could deal with her "issue" away from potentially prying eyes.

"This part is very important, can't you wait just two more minutes?"

"It's...an emergency?" That wasn't technically a lie.

There was a sigh. "Yeah alri-"

Valerie dashed out of the classroom and ran down the hallway, her left hand still in her pocket so that it threw off her rhythm and made it looked like she was running with an injury. "Wait! There's someone around the corner!" she thought, as she turned a corner and...

...and immediately skidded to a halt in front Vice-Principal Crubbs, the bane of all students in Foothill Junior High. Brad Moore once referred to him as "The Hitler of Vice-Principals" only to find out immediately afterwards that said Vice-Principal had been standing behind him the whole time. He was promptly assigned three weeks of detention and a two-page essay titled "Why our Vice-Principal isn't Hitler."

"And where are you going in such a hurry?"

"To the bathroom?" Surely he wouldn't think there was anything wrong with that.

"I see. And why is your hand in your pocket?"

Uh oh. "Because," Valerie thought hard for an excuse, "only my left hand is cold?"

"Uh huh. Take your hand out of your pocket please."

For the next second, Valerie considered the possibilities. On one hand, she could run away, try to get rid of the string, and suffer three weeks of detention and write a two-page essay titled "Why running from the Vice-Principal is wrong". On the other hand, she could just pull her hand out of her pocket and it's likely nothing would happen. Maybe he wouldn't even see the string. And even if he did, maybe he wouldn't care too much about it. And even if he did care about it, maybe he wouldn't end up finding out that the string was being magically produced at her fingertips and change her life forever with the revelation that she's apparently some freak of nature. Weighing her choices, Valerie made her decision.

She booked it.

Ignoring the loud cries of protest coming from behind her, Valerie was filled with instant regret. "Why'd I do that?" she thought, thinking she'd made a terrible mistake; despite that however she had a gut feeling that she'd actually made the right decision? That didn't make any sense. She passed her classroom and made a beeline for the stairwell, knowing (again, how?) that she could definitely make it to the first floor bathrooms. Suddenly, for what must be the fifth time that day, Valerie's intuition kicked in: someone was running towards the stairwell from the other end.

Unable to react fast enough, Valerie, for the second time that day, ran right into another person she somehow knew was right around the corner. This time however, instead of stopping right in front on an unpleasant authority figure, she full-on collided with another student...it was Arthur.

"Ow! Watch where you're going!" Valerie said rather hypocritically as she got back up. "Where are you going in such a hurry any- " Valerie asked, then stopped as she got a good look at Arthur's face. It was pale and he was a bit sweaty: even if her intuition hadn't been on point all day, Valerie would have known that he was terrified. Arthur didn't say a word, but raised a trembling finger and pointed down the hallway. From the direction he had come from, there were five girls walking towards them.


	3. 60 Seconds

"That's it? You're running from a bunch of girls? A bunch of...wow really...really hot girls...with perfect skin and- HEY!" Valerie, seemingly dazed, had started to walk towards the vampire girls to get a better look at them when Arthur pulled her back hard.

"Do you...do you not see the red eyes? The pale skin?..."

"Okay whoa I don't...I don't really like to look at people you know...'in that way.'"

"...the legs? The fiery hair?"

"Oh their hair is fire alright," replied Valerie, slowly drifting towards towards the teen vampires again. This time, Arthur pinched her, and Valerie felt a shock.

"Ow! Hey what's the deal with- whoa," Valerie stopped mid-sentence. The shock had knocked her out of her stupor, and for a moment, she could see the girls as Arthur described them. "Ok what are they and why are they dressed like how old people did in high-school?"

The vampire girls continued to approach them. "Hey like don't be afraid little hero, it'll all be over soon."

Despite her ridiculous valley girl accent and horrendously outdated clothing, Arthur found himself frozen in fear. But what could he do? It was obvious from Valerie's reaction that whatever they were, most people not only wouldn't be able to see them they'd be completely mesmerized by them. If he tried to explain things to a teacher it would likely take too long. He took a deep breath, and mustered what remaining courage he had left. "We have to split up. You run that way," he said, pointing down the other end of the hallway, "and I'll run up the stairs." Then he added grimly, "I think they only want me so you'll be safe and I...I'll think of something."

The vampire girls were even closer now. "Yeah like, we just wanna eat you and your friend too, you know?"

Valerie cringed. "Yeah that's really heroic of you and all, but I don't think that's gonna work here. C'mon, follow me!"

Valerie pulled Arthur up and ran up the stairwell, dragging Arthur along. 

Foothill Junior High was, unsurprisingly, built at the foot of a hill. Its unique location was reflected in its architecture: unlike most middle schools which consisted of multiple single-story buildings covering a large area, Foothill Junior High comprised a single U-shaped multi-story building opened up towards the south end. Its 1st floor was level with the ground on the south side, its 2nd floor was level with the lunch area in the center of the 'U', and its 3rd floor was level with the ground on the north side; above all this was another floor's worth of classrooms to accommodate the entire student body. There were two stairwells, one at the west, and the other at the east, which was the one where Arthur and Valerie had crashed into each other.

Valerie grabbed Arthur's arm and dragged him up the stairs. As they ran, Arthur noticed that for whatever reason she was running with her other hand in her pocket. She turned down the hallway on the second floor but remembered that was where the Vice-Principal had been ("Nope! Not that way!") and turned back to the stairwell (yanking Arthur back sharply) and headed upstairs again. They made it to the 3rd floor and were headed towards the north exit when along the way, they were stopped by their English teacher, Ms. Austen.

"Valerie? Arthur? Shouldn't you be in class right now?"

"We are um...going to the nurse's office! Arthur said he wasn't feeling very well. You know, 'cause of the incident from yesterday?" Valerie flashed a winning smile. Arthur nodded and did his best to look unwell.

"But the nurse's office is the other way. Also why were you running with your hand in your pocket? What do you have in there?"

"You know it's funny, that's the second time someone's asked me that today..." said Valerie as she subtly let go of Arthur's hand. "...RUN!"

The two of them ran past Ms. Austen on opposite sides further down the hall. With their attempt to take the north exit foiled, and the Vice-Principal still on the second floor, there was only one place left: the 4th floor. They reached the west stairwell and ran upwards. They came across an empty classroom, which was quite dark as the lights were turned off and the blinds were drawn. They ran inside, and Valerie locked the door behind them.

"So...what now" Arthur gasped. He against the wall, catching his breath. "What can we do about the vamp-"

"No, don't use the v-word!" Valerie cried.

"What? Vampires? Why not?"

"Because the moment you call them vampires, this turns into a vampire story and nobody wants that."

"Okay. But what do we do about those...things?"

Valerie thought about this. They had about one minute before the hot vampire girls would reach their location. How did she know that? Doesn't matter, just focus on finding a solution, she told herself.

\------

A minute later, there was the sound of a jiggling door handle, followed by a loud banging on the door, and then a heavy thud as a metallic leg kicked the door off the frame.

The leg stepped through the doorway, and five vampire teens entered the classroom. It was quite dark but that didn't seem to bother them at all, as they simply started sniffing around for their prey.

At the back of the classroom, Valerie and Arthur huddled under their desks in the dark, Valerie near the window, and Arthur in the front near the Smartboard. They both tried not to breathe too loudly has they pondered on the events that led them to this situation...

**60 seconds ago**

Valerie considered their options. Going to a teacher was even less of an option now than it had been before. There was nowhere left to run, as they had effectively cornered themselves when they climbed up to the 4th floor. That left fighting as their only option. Or was it?

She looked out the window overlooking the central lunch area. The ground was two floors below them.

"Yeah I think we're just gonna have to fight them. Look around there's gotta be something we can use."

They both looked around the classroom. There were bookshelves filled with textbooks, teacher's desks containing pens, a stapler, a pair of scissors, and the other usual supplies, and of course, the desks and chairs arranged in neat rows and columns. Aside from the pair of scissors, there was nothing that seemed potentially useful in a fight.

But there had to be some way for them to get out of this. Valerie sat down on the floor and tried to think; where was that super intuition now that she needed it, the one that allowed her to get through math class? Her mind went into overdrive, and as she desperately tried to think of a solution, she idly plucked at the string coming from her finger, lengthening it one inch at a time.

Meanwhile, Arthur was at an equal loss for ideas. Everything seemed to be going wrong today. First he managed to fry a cow eye, now he was on the run from vampire teens. Suddenly the incident with the phone and in the hallway didn't seem important anymore.

An idea crossed his mind, one that could potentially explain everything that had happened this morning: the phone, the "fluff", and the fried cow eye. Well...almost everything anyways; he still couldn't explain the vampire teens.

He went to the nearest chair; its legs were made of metal. He slowly moved his finger towards it. He felt another tingling sensation.

There was a sharp zapping sound and a small but bright flash of light where his finger touched the chair leg.

Electricity.

Somehow he had become some kind of human battery.

Everything made sense now. His phone. It wasn't being weird, it had run out of battery overnight and he had charged it with the paper clip. The fluff. It had clung to him because of his static electricity. And the cow eye...

The cow eye had been fried, burnt to a crisp without the slightest effort.

Okay, thought Arthur, trying to process this revelation. So maybe he could fight them? If he could fry a cow eye when he didn't even know he had powers, imagine what he could to a person if he were actually trying. Could he do it though? He would still be outnumbered 5-to-1 (well 2 if you counted Valerie). And weren't vampires supposed to have super speed and super strength? He imagined he could at most stun or even kill one before he got overwhelmed.

Resigned, Arthur turned towards Valerie, hoping that perhaps she was able to come up with a plan. She was still staring straight ahead, evidently deep in thought, as was pulling a string out of her finger.

_Back in the present, one of the vampire teens sniffed in their direction. She started to make their way towards the back of the classroom, squeezing between the chairs and desks as she did so._

**45 seconds ago**

Arthur watched as Valerie stared straight ahead, evidently deep in thought, as she pulled a string out of her finger.

Wait a minute.

Arthur stopped and stared in morbid fascination as Valerie idly kept pulling a string out from her finger, which now formed a very large pile in her lap. Valerie noticed this and blushed.

"Yeah okay, I have string coming out of my finger. Big deal." She rolled her eyes but continued looking embarrassed. "I uh...didn't say anything about it earlier because there was more important stuff going on. Actually it's still going on but you know what I meant."

Barely paying attention to what she said, Arthur leaned forward with curiosity. He reached out and touched the string. There was a now familiar tingling sensation at his fingertips.

"Ow!" cried Valerie, as she got electrocuted. "How do you keep...doing that?" asked Valerie, her anger fading as an idea formed in her mind. "Do that again?"

Arthur looked confused, but nonetheless reached out again, this time thinking about what he wanted to do. There was that same tingling sensation but slightly more intense this time and Valerie cried even louder in pain. Arthur opened his mouth to ask what she expected but stopped as he noticed that she seemed to be in even deeper thought, now idly pulling at the string faster, causing it to spill out more rapidly.

"Are you-" he asked.

"Yeah," Valerie interrupted. "I think I have a way we can beat those things.

_Back in the present, the other vampire teens also noticed the scent of the demigods coming from the back of the classroom. They followed suit, slipping between the chairs and desks as they made their way towards the back of the classroom. Arthur watched their feet as they drew closer. He swallowed hard, then gripped the string in his hand more tightly._

**30 seconds ago**

"We make a net out of my string," Valerie said simply, "and you electrify it." She began to untangle the mess of string in her lap.

"A net?" asked Arthur. "Do we really have the tools for that? How would we even get them to walk into it anyway?"

"Not like a real net," Valerie explained. She handed Arthur the loose end of the string and started scuttling between the chairs and desks with her hand hanging low to the ground. "More like a web of string. We'll place it on the ground so they'll walk over it at first but then when they're all inside it, we lift it up all at once and chances they won't be able to move without touching the string if they're not touching it already. We'll also turn off the lights so they can't see it. Do you think you can send a stronger current? One that'll really hurt?"

He could. In that sense, Arthur knew that Valerie's plan was better than she knew, since he knew from yesterday's experience that he could kill one of these things easily if he could. Her plan still seemed sketchy to him though. "Yes but what makes you think they'll fall for it? What if they just turn on the lights and kill us quickly?"

Valerie thought about this. "I don't think they'd do that," she mused. "I think if they wanted to kill us quickly, they'd have done so already. I think they're taking their time because they're careless which is lucky for us."

_Back in the present, all five vampire teens had made their way into the center of the classroom. Arthur and Valerie jumped up and pulled. The string went taut and the web was lifted above the ground and around the legs of desks and chairs and the ankles of the vampire teens._

**15 seconds ago**

"And that's the gist of the awesome plan I came up with on such short notice," Valerie said somewhat smugly. "Am I forgetting anything?"

She went quiet for a moment, then suddenly gave a start, causing Arthur to jump back a little. "The string's still on my finger!"

"Can't your rip it off?" said Arthur.

"I don't know. I've never done this before...the scissors quick! And turn off the lights!"

Valerie ran into position near the windows. Arthur dashed to the teacher's desk, grabbed the scissors, and tossed them to Valerie, who caught them with a surprised yelp. He ran to the lights, turned them off, and ran to his corner of the room just as he heard the door handle begin to jiggle...

_Back in the present, the vampire teens gasped and cried out as they realized that they'd been caught in a trap._

"Now Arthur!" Valerie cried out, as she snipped the string off of her finger. Arthur focused as hard as he could, mentally challenging all of his energy into his hand that held onto his end of the string. A small part of him wondered how awful it would be if he failed to activate his powers right now.

But he didn't fail. And suddenly three of the vampire teens exploded into dust, having been instantly electrocuted to death. However, the remaining two had sensed danger right before and exploded into flames instead.

"We did it!" Arthur put up his hand and Valerie rushed forward to embrace him before awkwardly switching to a high-five instead.

The flames caught onto desks, the wall, and parts of the carpet and grew. Their brief moment of victory was interrupted as the sprinklers in the ceiling activated, putting out the fires and soaking them. Outside in the hallway, the fire alarm blared loudly.

"Okay then," said Valerie. "Now let's get the hell outta here."


	4. Heavy Rain

They didn't make it very far.

The second Arthur and Valerie stepped out of the classroom, they were confronted by Vice-Principal Crubbs and Ms. Austen.

"Hey guys." Valerie grinned nervously up at the two adults glaring down at them. She and Arthur stood just outside the doorway, water dripping from their hair and clothes. Behind them, the room was filled with rising flames, smoke, and steam. 

"So what's up?"

The next hour or so was tense. The school's automated system made an emergency call when the smoke detectors were triggered and first responders quickly arrived on the scene. The paramedics weren't needed, as Arthur and Valerie were uninjured and nobody else had even been close to the fire. The firefighters made short work of the fire, which was limited to just the one classroom. The law enforcement officers however, the Vice-Principal told the children, had a few questions for the two kids who had apparently ditched their classes to commit arson.

"Well legally they're innocent until proven guilty...obviously," Officer Thompson hastily added. "Though I must admit the situation's not looking very good for the two of-"

"Indeed, not very good at all the two of you at all," interrupted his partner Officer Thomson, much to the annoyance of the other. "I received testimony from your Vice-Principal and your teacher as well and it seems all four are in agreement that you were both in the room when the fire began. Is that true?"

Arthur and Valerie nodded in silence.

Thomson opened his mouth to speak again but Thompson beat him to it. "And the two of you say that there was no one else in the room at the time?"

There was a pause this time. Though each wanted desperately to tell the truth about what had happened, Arthur and Valerie both knew that he was asking them this as a courtesy rather than actually giving them the benefit of the doubt. The firefighters hadn't recovered any bodies from the fire. Nobody claimed to have seen anyone strange near the area around the time of the fire, as the empousai had apparently managed to evade detection. Finally, the forensics team had even concluded that the windows hadn't moved since before the fire began, meaning that they couldn't have escaped through the window even if that had been a possibility. If they told the truth, they'd simply appear to be lying.

Arthur and Valerie shook their heads.

Thomson sighed regretfully. "Then I'm afraid we have no choice but to bring you two down to the station."

Arthur and Valerie were lead into a crowd of students which had formed around the "scene of the crime". News had spread that Arthur and Valerie had started a fire...which at one point somehow devolved into a rumor that Arthur and Valerie ditched class to make out in an empty classroom. As they made their way through the crowd, there seemed to be a great deal of suspense, as they felt all eyes bearing down on them and heard the buzz of whispering in the crowd.

This suspense was abruptly broken by a cry of "Ayo while we were all in class, Arthur and Valerie were getting busy!" This elicited a rumble of laughter from everyone.

Arthur's face burned. "No we weren't!" he said, quite lamely, realizing how pathetic his comeback was the moment it came out of his mouth.

Valerie groaned. "Seriously? That's the best you've got? Watch this." She turned towards the direction of the heckler. "HEY YOU!...SHUT UP!" Though he didn't say anything, Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Shut up! I couldn't think of a good comeback okay?" Valerie retorted.

The two of them entered the backseat of the squad car with Thompson at the wheel and Thomson in the passenger seat, they took off. The ride was mostly silent. Valerie fiddled around with her hands, trying to summon string from her finger again. She thought perhaps if she could show that the magical string was real, the law enforcement officers might be more willing to hear her out when she explained to them that all this was somehow the fault of some teenage vampires. "Yeah, like that'll work," she thought to herself, quickly dismissing the thought. She continued to try to summon string, however.

Arthur on the other hand, merely stared out the window at the sky. The clouds had darkened significantly since the day began and it had started to rain. He tried to imagine what he could have done differently which might have resulted in a series of events that didn't end with him sitting in the back of a squad car. But between the fact that nobody else apparently witnessed the vampire teens and the fact that they barely managed to outwit the empousai with the electric net (which had mostly been Valerie's idea anyway), it seemed that he had practically been destined to be arrested. The thought of this mildly annoyed him. Shouldn't some elder mentor figure have shown up at this point? Arthur was pretty sure there weren't any young adult adventures that began with the hero being arrested. Perhaps he wasn't a hero, but rather just a forgettable side character.

Arthur's train of thought was interrupted by a roaring sound that had gradually grown louder until it registered in his mind. He realized it was the sound of the rain, which had steadily gotten louder and louder until now he could hardly even hear his thoughts. Even with the rapid flurry of the windshield wipers, the road ahead could hardly be seen now. He turned and saw that Valerie was looking squinting upwards out the window. The rain was falling much harder than was normal, she thought. It was as if they were in the middle of a hurricane, only there were no gale force winds and they were much too far inland. She watched as the raindrops on the window started to descend more vertically, rather than towards the back of the car; the car was slowing down, evidently the heavy rain had flooded the roads to such an extent that the car could no longer move.

The car came to a complete stop. Thompson grunted and floored the gas pedal repeatedly but to no avail. The engine made grinding noises but the car remained still, and then the grinding stopped. Thompson banged the steering wheel in frustration (both kids jumped at the sound of the car horn) and then unbuckling his seat belt, mumbled something about having to fix the blasted engine.

Thompson opened the door and stepped out. The moment his hands left the car the rain intensified beyond what Valerie thought was possible. The flood grew and Thompson lost his balanced; he waved his hands around trying to grab at the car but he slipped. Arthur and Valerie stared out the back window, mouths open, as Thompson was swept down the road in the direction they came from, spinning around as if he were on a water slide. The rain slowed just as quickly as it had come; the kids could see that although he had stopped sliding down the road, Thompson was struggling to get up.

Thomson cursed. "Wait here and don't move," he told the two kids who merely nodded, too stunned at what had happened to speak. Thomson stepped outside the car and just as before, the moment his hands left the car, the rain intensified.

"WHAT THE F-" Thomson cried out, but was interrupted as he fell backwards into the water. The current surged and the kids watched as both Thompson and Thomson slid down the road and out of sight. In spite of Thomson's orders, Arthur and Valerie got out the car and looked around. Though the clouds remained, the rain around them suddenly came to a halt. Actually, Valerie observed, only the rain around them had suddenly come to a halt. Everywhere around them, the rain continued to pour as heavily as it had before. Valerie's instincts told her something was above her so she looked up; she gasped.

A large, dark, and unfamiliar shape descended upon them, breaking through the clouds and revealing the sun. Blinded by the sudden light, Arthur and Valerie turned away. They looked back up; the spot of the road they were standing on was now the only area around them not blocked by rain clouds and the sun shone on it like a natural spotlight. Parked on the road next to the law enforcement vehicle was a chariot that was driven by two teenagers and pulled by two pegasi, which were now pacing in place and flapping their wings in front of the chariot. But for some reason the part that caught Valerie's attention wasn't the teenagers or the magical creatures, but the chariot itself. 

Unlike the ones depicted in history books, which were small and could fit only one or two people, this chariot was much longer and was clearly designed to hold more people. It housed a second pair of wheels near the back, which was open just like on a regular chariot so that it overall resembled a massive bathtub on four wheels with the back end cleaved off. In addition, just above the back wheels on either side of the chariot were two protrusions which pointed outwards and upwards with helicopter rotors at the top.

"To create lift for the back of the aircraft," thought Valerie. Then she blinked. It seemed obvious now, but how had she known that in the first place?

The two teenagers climbed out of the chariot and approached them. As they drew nearer, Valerie was able to get a better look at the two. 

One of them was a boy, with messy jet-black hair and sea green eyes. Walking beside him was a girl with blonde hair and grey eyes.


	5. Retroactive Continuity Pt. 1

The two teenagers hopped out of their chariot and approached Arthur and Valerie. They appeared to be bickering. When they got closer however, they stopped arguing and the girl put on a smile.

"Hi!" she said, drawing out the last syllable with a forced cheerfulness. "We're here to pick up a um..." she stopped and pulled out her phone for a moment, "...an Arthur Pendergast?"

She turned towards Arthur expectantly, having figured that if either of them were Arthur it would more likely be the boy.

Arthur raised his hand timidly. "That's me."

The girl clasped her hands together. "Excellent. Now I don't want to be 'that person' but I'm technically supposed to ask you why you went to school instead of waiting at home when the letter clearly tells you that doing so would put you at risk of monster encounters."

Arthur visibly paled at the question, which Valerie found odd. "The letter?"

But rather than getting mad, the girl sighed and elbowed the boy. "You idiot I told you paper mail was a dumb idea. I mean who even uses the US Postal Service these days?..."

"Millions of sellers online who want to deliver packages, for starters," the boy replied smoothly.

"...I thought you were the smart one!" the girl finished, completely ignoring the boy's response.

She turned back towards and apologized. Valerie turned to look at the dark-haired boy to see his reaction. He met her gaze and shrugged. "I don't know it seemed like a good idea at the time."

Meanwhile the girl had just finished filling in Arthur on all the important details he'd missed in the letter. Something about a summer program?

"...and of course we'll let your parents know where you are of course. So are you ready to go?"

This caught Valerie's attention. "Whoa whoa hang on, what about me? Don't I also get to go to this...thing?"

The girl facepalmed herself. "Ugh I forgot about the mortal." She waved her hands around mystically. "We are just taking your friend for a ride in our fancy helicopter." Then she snapped her fingers in Valerie's face

Valerie blinked. Then looked back at the strange chariot. "By helicopter do you mean that weird looking chariot thing?"

The girl stared dumbfounded. The boy rolled his eyes. "You idiot. She can see through the Mist dummy."

"Right! Of course! I knew that!" said the girl. "But how do we know if you're a demigod or just a mortal who can see through the Mist?"

Valerie didn't know how to respond to this but this time Arthur spoke up.

"She's a demigod too! She helped me fight off some monsters! She can shoot string from her finger!"

The girl looked at Valerie quizzically. "You can shoot string out of your finger? That doesn't sound like any demigod power I've ever heard of. Show me."

Valerie wiggled in fingers as if to warm them up. She held both hands close to her waist and then thrust them outwards if she were shooting a Kamehameha.

Nothing happened.

She turned her palms towards her face as if to examine them, then shook her hands. Instantly pools of string shot forth from all ten fingertips into her face. She recoiled in surprise. After several seconds the string stopped shooting out of her fingertips. Valerie turned her palms outwards to show the teenagers the string victoriously, as if that had been her plan all along.

"Yeah ok," said the girl, "she can come along I guess."

Arthur and Valerie climbed into the chariot and they took off, rising above the cloud layer. Valerie noticed that as they flew, a cloud seemed to follow along directly beneath them. The blonde girl told them that the ETA to their destination, Half-Blood Hill, was several hours so they may as well exchange names and stories to pass the time.

"I'll start. My name's Sophia Jackson though most people know me as the daughter of Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase...but I guess you don't know who those are yet. Dad's like this son of Poseidon and I got the power to make rain from him. It's where all the rain from earlier came from plus it comes in handy to provide cloud cover for the chariot," she said, indicating the cloud that was following them underneath. "It's kind of ironic because mom named me after the Greek word for wisdom but I ended up getting the water powers in the family. Also I can talk to horses and sea animals I guess."

"Yeah, and also because you're clearly the dumber one," the boy, who was evidently her brother, interrupted.

"Shut up Stephen!" Sophia retorted.

"Stephen?" Arthur looked up, suddenly interested. "Did your mom name you after the legendary Stephen Hawking?"

Stephen groaned. "No. It was dad's turn to name me. I'm named after Stephen Hillenburg. He was apparently this marine biologist and..." he sighed, "...he also created some famous old cartoon show or something. I don't know. Dad always had a weird sense of humor. But like my sister said, she was named after wisdom but got the water powers and I was named after the marine biologist but I'm," he paused, "slightly smarter or wiser than the average person I guess? Also I'm apparently good at driving chariots so there's that too I guess." He held up the reins to the chariot as he said the last part.

Next, Sophia suggested that they exchange interesting stories. Arthur began by talking about the incident with his phone and continued on, mentioning the incidents in the hallway and with the cow eye. However, Sophia interrupted him just as he brought up the vampire teens.

"Hang on, did you just mention vampire teens??" asked Sophia.

"Yep," replied Valerie. "Well they mostly just looked like normal teenager girls to me except whenever Arthur did his zappy fingers thing. But Arthur said he only saw them as vampires?"

She turned towards Arthur for affirmation and he nodded in agreement.

"Oh cool! You've got True Sight!" Sophia said to Arthur. 

"True Sight?"  
  
"It's when you can see through the Mist. It's a pretty rare ability for both mortals and demigods. Not like "Chosen One rare" more like...ambidextrous rare? Like it's cool but it's not that useful or anything 'cause most demigods can see through the Mist enough to get by anyway."

"Mom and dad only got through the Labyrinth because Rachel could see the Mist." Stephen mentioned.

"Yes. Thank you for pointing me out I'm wrong once again, brother," she said mockingly. Stephen took one hand off the reins long enough to flash a thumbs-up of acknowledgment. "He's _is_ right though," she admitted to Arthur and Valerie.

Valerie continued telling her story, ending with the story about how she and Arthur defeated the empousai by combining their powers and luring them into their trap.

Sophia whistled, impressed and even Stephen showed unusual emotion by nodding along during the climax.

"Hey that's pretty good!" Sophia complimented, then pulled out her phone. "I mean yeah it says here you're supposed to be a Son of Zeus so the shock powers check out." She looked around at everyone looking at her. "What? Was that supposed to be more of a big reveal? Oh I'm sorry I meant to say umm...'I don't know who your godly parent is it's an absolute mystery! You will have to wait until the mysterious Claiming Ceremony to find out!'" she said, dragging out the syllables to "mysterious Claiming Ceremony" to accentuate its alleged spookiness.

"But you," she turned towards Valerie now. "You, I can't tell at all though. Is there a minor god or goddess of string I don't know about?"

An audible groan came from the front of the chariot.

"What Stephen?" Sophia cried. "Is there something you want to tell us?!"

"Yes, actually," Stephen looked back at them grinning. "I think if you think about it, it's pretty obvious who her godly _mother_ is."

"What?!" Sophia jerked her head back towards Valerie. "Is that true? So your mortal parent was your father?"

"I was raised by just my dad. I never knew my mother," said Valerie, slightly taken aback.

"Wait!" Sophia turned back towards Stephen again. "How'd you know that? Tell me!" She began to repeatedly hit her brother in the back of his head as he protested for her to stop. While this went on in the background, Valerie concentrated on trying to produce string from her fingertips. She tried to remember how magic worked in every fantasy book series she ever read and held her hands outward, like a wizard casting a spell, trying to will the string into existence, visualizing it forming on her fingertips and extending outwards.

It didn't work.

She tried again, this time concentrating even harder. Suddenly she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Arthur.

"Uh...hey."

Startled, Valerie put her hands down on her seat. "Yeah of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

Arthur looked somewhat nervous. "I should've said this earlier but thanks for saving my life. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't come up with that plan"

"Yeah. No problem." Her mind went back to the incident earlier that day. It was as if her mind had kept calling attention to details before she herself realized she noticed or knew about them. "But I didn't really think of it."

Arthur frowned. "What do you mean?"  
  
"It felt like...the plan just appeared in my head." She noticed Arthur raise an eyebrow. "Not like in a normal way! Somehow I just realized that we could just do that? I guess I figured that out because you shocked me when you touched my string but I wasn't thinking of that when I came up with the plan...am I making sense?"

Arthur was about to shake his head no but was interrupted by Sophia returning, having given up on coercing his brother for information.

"We still have a long time before we get there so I guess I should just fill you in on some background info." Sophia sat down and began to tell Arthur and Valerie the lore of the entire universe. Basically Greek mythological figures were real, which they had already managed to figure out for themselves. Over the course of history they had followed western civilization, moving from Greece to Rome, across Europe and finally, across the sea to North America. The gods and monsters have all adapted to modern day times and now lived in the United States and all surrounding regions. In addition, there were many organizations ("Or whatever you want to call them," said Sophia) such as the Amazons that had also shifted to the west. And of course there were also the demigods, half human children of the gods who tended inherit certain aspects of their godly parents.

But the gods and demigods were the most important, Sophia stated. For the past few thousand years, they influenced the course of history and in fact, several historical figures were demigods.

"Which I never understood," lamented Sophia. "It's supposed to be difficult to survive to adulthood as a demigod but I mean with all the historical figures that were actually demigods surely it isn't that bad? It's probably like a 50% survival rate? _Definitely at least_ a 50% survival rate," she added hastily, seeing the look of alarm on Arthur's and Valerie's faces.

"I mean dad was a son of Poseidon so he was supposed to attract all sorts of monsters. But it wasn't too bad. He even had fun on all of his adventures with mom." Sophia went on to describe how people regarded their parents to be the greatest couple ever or something and how her everyone talked about how their dad Percy had been this snarky good looking guy with dark hair and their mom Annabeth had these fierce grey eyes so nobody every saw her as just a dumb blonde.

"So kinda like you and your brother," said Valerie.

Sophia cringed. "A lot of people say that but like they're our mom and dad and they're married whereas we're siblings so when you say it like that it's kinda weird."

"I don't know sis I think maybe all those people are onto something," called out Stephen from the front of the chariot. "Or should I call you...'Wise Girl'?"

"Ew! No!" Sophia cried as she punched her brother's in the back. "That's what dad calls mom!! Don't be gross like that!!"

"You mentioned that your parents saved the world. Can you tell us what happened?" Arthur asked, hoping to switch to a less awkward topic.

"Sure thing," said Sophia. "So it all started almost 30 years ago at this place called Yancy Academy..."

Sophia began to tell the story of how her father Percy discovered he was a Poseidon and went to camp where he met her mother Annabeth. She was actually quite a good storyteller, Arthur noted, pausing during big reveals to allow time for the appropriate responses. Valerie quickly stopped paying attention, instead opting to continue trying to hone her abilities. However, neither Arthur nor Sophia noticed as they were both absorbed with what they were doing. Sophia went on to tell Arthur about how Percy was framed for stealing Zeus' Lightning Bolt and how he and Annabeth journeyed to the Underworld to retrieve it as well as save his mother, how he was betrayed by a young man named Luke Castellan whom he thought was his friend but was secretly working for Kronos. She went on to describe how they sailed to the Bermuda Triangle together to rescue Percy's friend Grover and save the camp, how they revived a daughter of Zeus named Thalia then Percy travelled to San Francisco again to save Annabeth (and also the goddess Artemis), how they wandered through the Labyrinth together and found out Daedalus had actually transplanted his soul into a robot, and finally how they fought in the Battle of Manhattan and Percy saved the world and vanquished Kronos once and for all.

"Well actually he technically didn't do it. The hero in the prophecy was actually Luke. But dad gave him the knife so he could stab himself in his Achilles' Armpit and destroy Kronos. Then he made all the gods swear on the River Styx to do the bare minimum for their children. And yeah that's pretty much it. There were a few other stories but for the most part nothing really happened afterwards. They went to college, dad got into marine biology and mom became an architect, they married and has us and that's it. The End."

"Wow that was a really fascinating story," said Arthur, as he nudged Valerie now that he finally noticed what she'd been preoccupied with.

"Huh?" Valerie put her hands down as if nothing were out of the ordinary. "I'm listening. So what happened after he killed the math teacher?"

Sophia ignored her. "Alright we're about to start landing so we should get ready now."

The three of them held on tightly as the "stretch chariot", as Valerie had come to call it began to descend.

"Welcome..." Sophia paused for dramatic effect, "...to Demigod Academy!"


	6. Retroactive Continuity Pt. 2

As they descended, Sophia willed the clouds she had been keeping beneath them to move aside, revealing the land underneath. Arthur and Valerie stuck their heads out to look at the land below.

In the distance, they could see a beach and a harbor leading to the open sea. To the left was a small forest and to the right was an open area featuring, among other things, a volcano. At least, it looked like a volcano. Upon closer examination, Valerie realized it was far too small and perfectly shaped like a cone to be an actual volcano. She spotted movement and squinted; she could now see that there were people scaling the surface of the volcano, which was not actually perfectly smooth, but was covered with small protrusions and depressions of varying bright colors, like a rock climbing surface, albeit one that had bits of lava running down parts of it. From the direction they came from, next to a large manor, were rows of small bushes. "A berry farm," Valerie thought to herself, though how she knew that or what type of berries they were, she couldn't say.

At the center of everything was the strangest assortment of buildings and structures Arthur and Valerie had ever seen. At the heart of the compound was a series of buildings arranged in a U shape. Except for their size and shape, as each was about 2 stories tall and had a generic log cabin shape, the buildings could not have been more different. They flew overhead too quickly for Valerie to catch all the details but she was able to get a good look at two buildings near the bottom of the "U": one was white and gold and appeared regal whereas the other had a bluish tinge and was made of colorful stones that give it the general appearance of a coral reef. There was a racing stadium with a large sign on the side that Valerie could barely make out from the chariot ("Circus...Minimus," she read), a miniature version of the Colosseum, an amphitheater, an unidentifiable building that look like what would happen if a steampunk train covered with Tesla coils were to crash into a reconstructed Parthenon, and what looked like a Roman villa. The buildings were connected with concrete pathways and any leftover spaces were filled in with a variety of plant life such that the whole area resembled a college campus or fancy boarding school.

"It was originally a camp for demigods called Camp Half-Blood. But then we got more people and built more buildings to accommodate everyone and became more of a school than a camp so it turned into Half-Blood Academy," Sophia explained. "But some people considered the term half-blood offensive so they changed it to Olympus Academy but then children of non-Olympian gods felt they weren't being represented so eventually they settled on the name Demigod Academy."

The stretch chariot hit the landing strip, bouncing a few times before its back wheels settled into a consistent roll. The helicopter rotors slowed, and the pegasi's galloping slowed to a trot before they coming to a complete stop. Arthur and Valerie hopped out of the back.

Sophia led the pegasi back to the stables, leaving Stephen to take them to Orientation. Having had few interactions with him on the chariot ride, Arthur and Valerie quickly learned that Stephen was a generally moody individual. He led them on a rather unceremonious tour, explaining things in a casual irreverent manner such as the background of the institute...

("This is the Institute, the only safe place for young demigods. Used to be just a camp, but after dad's big adventure he made the gods give more of a crap so we started getting more kids and we had to expand and stuff.")

...information about parts of the school...

("That building over there that looks like a Roman villa is where classes are held. Mom designed it. She came up with the name for the Institute too, said it sounded 'distinguished' or whatever.")

...and finally, the locations of key buildings.

"Bathroom's that way," he said, pointing. Arthur lowered his hand, nodded in thanks, and ran off in the indicated direction.

When he returned, the three of them proceeded towards their destination, a house that Valerie hadn't noticed when they were flying by earlier. The house was very ordinary looking, especially when compared to motley of other buildings which were all Greek, Roman, or something else entirely. It was quite large, Valerie noted, standing at 3 stories tall. Because it was so big, Valerie decided she would refer to it as...

"...the Big House," said Stephen, as they walked through the front door into a living room. "It's sort of a multi-purpose building. It's part Orientation center, part meeting room, part quest trophy room, part infirmary, and part...place where our dean hangs out I guess. Anyways here's the orientation room."

He led them into a small office; there was a old computer on the desk next to a flat screen television in front of a couch. Stephen gestured them to sit down on the couch, turned on the TV, then told them to enjoy the orientation film.

At least, that's what Stephen called it. But the truth was it wasn't much of an orientation film. In fact, it was hardly a film at all, but rather a compilation of short video skits involving generic school activities, each featuring the same handsome young blonde guy and ending with some kind of punchline or dance number accompanied by 20 year old pop music. It was clearly meant to be "cool", but instead had the opposite effect, coming off as horribly dated and reminding Arthur of the "Vines" and "Tiktoks" from the 2010s that Will and Eliza showed him when he was younger.

The skit compilation lasted twenty minutes, though to Arthur and Valerie it felt like an hour. The credits scrolled up on the screen.

**HIH Orientation Film**

**Directed by Apollo  
**

**Produced by Apollo**

**Written by Apollo**

**Music by Apollo**

**Edited by Apollo**

**Starring Apollo as Apollo**

And at the end, in much smaller text...

**Also featuring miscellaneous demigod students as themselves**

Arthur thought it was quite possibly the worst thing he had ever seen in his life, which was saying a lot considering he had watched The Kissing Booth 4 last year. Evidently, Valerie had similar thoughts.

"What the hell was that?" she cried.

"The orientation film," replied Stephen innocently. Then he explained, "Apollo made it. He's the god of music and art, but not the god of theaters and film. That job belongs to Dean D."

"Your dean's the god of theater and film?" asked Valerie. "Then why didn't he make the orientation film?"

"I did make one," said a voice behind them dryly, "but it was deemed...oh what did the old horse call it? 'Not very child friendly' I think?"

Startled, the three of them turned around. There was a man at the doorway. He was middle-aged, with dark hair and a beard. He looked like he could have been handsome, like an older Hollywood actor, if it weren't for his disheveled hair, unkempt beard, and ruddy complexion. Worst of all however, was his outfit. The man sported an unbuttoned leopard print Hawaiian shirt, matching shorts, and purple sneakers. He looked like he belonged at a rave rather than at a school.

Despite his ridiculous outfit, Valerie got the distinct impression that he was not to be trifled with.

Unfortunately, Valerie had a tendency to speak before thinking.

"You're the dean?" she blurted out incredulously.

The dean raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I am the dean of this institute. Until a few decades ago I was merely a camp director until father was kind enough to promote me. Now instead of overseeing unruly campers, I get to oversee unruly students." As he said "unruly students" his eyes zeroed in on Valerie. Valerie wasn't the type to imagine things, but she could have sworn she saw a purple tinge in the man's eyes as he said this.

"Arthur and Valerie, meet Dean D," said Stephen, his moody demeanor had vanished and his irreverent tone was replaced with a much more respectful one. "Also known as Dionysus, the god of wine, partying, theater, and madness if I remember correctly." He turned towards the dean. "I was just showing them the orientation film. They're new students."

"Oh really? I thought they were old students and you were introducing me to them for reason," the dean retorted sardonically. "New students," he scoffed. "After all these years I still don't understand the point of this place. You're all the same as mortals anyway; just as selfish as they are."

The three of them stood there uncomfortably in silence until Dionysus gave a disdainful grunt and left, having nothing else to say. Stephen mentioned something about showing them the houses as he herded them out. None of them spoke until they were well out of earshot of the Big House.

"That's Dean D," he said quietly, even though they seemed to be alone. "Don't think too much about what he says. He's like that to everyone, even towards dad, who's actually allegedly his favorite demigod 'cause a long time ago he proved he wasn't selfish or something, but he stills calls him Peter or Perry and acts like he hates him whenever he stops by school."

Stephen continued the tour. As he led them down a path towards the center of campus, he continued to describe that the academy had to offer. For one thing, should any monster-related incident happen that resulted in them being accused of any crimes, the school would manipulate the Mist so that they would be exonerated of all charges. The school would also explain to their parents what had happened."

"I _knew_ I was forgetting something!" cried Valerie as she smacked her forehead. "Yeah not having a criminal record at the age of 13 would be real nice.

They entered an open compound surrounded by the strange buildings Valerie had spotted earlier from the chariot. Stephen explained that each building was a residence hall or "house" for children of a certain god and that originally there had been twelve cabins, one for each Olympian, but now there were about twenty or so and had been rebuilt into houses ("designed by mom") in order to accommodate the rapidly growing student body.

And evidently, Arthur's house was right at the entrance to the compound, a large, regal, white and gold building that Stephen said was called "Jupiter House".

"Well technically it's not official until the whole claiming process but when it's that obvious we just put you in the right house anyway," explained Stephen. He went on to explain that since most demigods usually arrived at school getting chased by monsters or after monster encounter incidents similar to theirs, they typically didn't have time to pack. Because of this, all clothes, toiletries, school supplies, and backpacks would be provided for them by the school and would be waiting for them...

"...right in your room, which I have the number for right over here." Stephen pulled out what appeared to be a label gun. He asked Arthur to hold out his hand, which he did. Arthur then watched as Stephen punched the number '1' on the label gun and then pulled the label gun's trigger, slapping a sticker that read "DA ROOM ASSIGNMENT" onto the middle of Arthur's palm. Arthur watched as the ink shifted around the sticker to form the words "Jupiter House" followed by what he assumed was his room number. Arthur picked at the edges, but the label was stuck fast.

"Don't worry. It'll fall off in about an hour," said Stephen. They exchanged goodbyes and Stephen headed off with Valerie, leaving Arthur all by himself.

"But wait!" Arthur wanted to call out. Stephen never told him how he figured he was a son of Zeus.


	7. Harry Potter and The Bible

Arthur turned back towards what was apparently "Jupiter Hall." Arthur really hadn't thought about it, but if he'd been asked how he would have imagined a place for the children of Zeus, the king of the gods, he probably would have imagined a grand temple similar to the Parthenon. This was nothing like that; instead the building before him had a very modern design. It was made mostly of steel and glass, and the actually building itself was raised above the ground by several steel columns, so that it essentially looked like a giant box propped up on stilts. The only apparent way in was an elevator which Arthur entered and rode into the lobby.

The sun shone through the wall at the front of the building, which was essentially one large window, lighting up the mostly white interior of the building.. Scattered throughout the lobby were several empty chairs and coffee tables and at the center of the common area was a statue of what had to be Zeus, but it was like no depiction of Zeus Arthur had ever seen before. He was used to Zeus being portrayed as a muscular old man with a wild beard dressed in a toga, often wielding a large lightning bolt and usually in the form of a marble statue. This statue however was made of steel, and depicted a man with a neatly trimmed beard wearing a sleek business suit (Arthur noticed a small lightning bolt tie clip) and holding a smooth cylinder sitting casually on a throne. He looked more like a younger Christian Bale holding an oversized lightsaber than the mythical king of all the Olympian gods.

Arthur stopped staring at the statue, remembering what he was there for. Following the signs, he went what he figured was the right direction down one of the hallways. Each door has a plaque with a room number and some other words beneath that Arthur didn't really pay attention to. He walked down the corridor, tracking the room numbers as drew closer and closer to his room.

He stopped in front of his door. There was a plaque on it that read the room number and below that, a name: "Hal". As Arthur touched the door handle, another name appeared beneath the first one: "Arthur".

The room was quite ordinary. In fact, except for the fact that the wall on the far side of the doorway was a large glass window overlooking the rest of the school, it looked much like the one at home that Arthur's brothers Cillian and Dallas shared. There was a bunk bed in the corner farthest from the doorway and two desks, one opposite to the bunk bed and one adjacent to it. Sitting at the desk opposite to the bunk bed was a blonde boy reading a book.

He was tall and thin, but not such that he was lanky, actually he was attractive and fit. He was dressed like a prep boy, sporting a collared shirt that was unbuttoned near the top which he left untucked out of his cargo shorts.

Arthur groaned inwardly. He was reminded of his Cillian and Dallas and how they would constantly get into fights that made Arthur feel lucky that as the youngest sibling, he had the privilege of having a room to himself. Now, it seemed that he was in that situation himself. He knew demigods were supposed to take on the qualities of their godly parent. As a son of Zeus, he should have guessed that his roommate/half-brother would be some kind of snobby rich kid.

Or was he? As Arthur looked around the room he reconsidered. Around the desk on the left side of the room, which was obviously the one the blonde boy had claimed for himself, there were paper books on the shelf above the table as well as movie posters hanging on the walls. One of them was for a movie called "Back to the Future", but not the new one with Tom Holland and Robert Downey Jr that Arthur had seen and thought was awful, but the older one which featured actors Arthur didn't recognize. And of course, he was reading a book; Arthur knew lots of kids who read for fun but he didn't know anyone who owned an actual book made of paper.

And so Arthur decided that he would give his roommate the benefit of the doubt.

"So...what's that?" he asked, hoping to come off as casual and friendly.

The blonde boy looked up in surprise, having apparently been so absorbed with what he had been reading that he only just noticed Arthur. He started blankly and suddenly Arthur felt uneasy, wondering if he had misjudged things.

But the blonde boy just stuck a bookmark careful into the book and closed it. Arthur craned his neck a bit to try to see what the boy had been reading. It wasn't hard, as the book's extremely long title took up much of the cover.

**"Edith Hamilton's Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (Edited and Annotated by Annabeth Chase"**

Before Arthur could do anything, the blonde boy started talking. He spoke quickly yet monotonously.

"Greek mythology, It's actually pretty interesting. You know growing up, I always thought Greek mythology was a lot of boring magical baloney. You know, like Harry Potter or The Bible."

He shifted around so that he was now sitting in his chair backwards. Slightly intimidated, Arthur backed off a bit. The blonde boy gestured with his hands as he continued speaking.

"Like I'd always figured Daedalus was just some guy who built wings and then his son dies in some on-the-nose allegory about human arrogance, but he was actually much more than that. He was this morally ambiguous genius who spent years running away from this crazy king, then backstabbed his nephew because he was smarter than him. And according to this, to further avoid having to face judgment from the crazy king, he turned himself into an android to cheat death. So if you really think about it, he's like Tony Stark, Mark Zuckerberg...the one from The Social Network, not the one from real life...Jean Valjean, and Robocop all rolled into one person. My name's Hal by the way."

Hal extended his hand and Arthur instinctively grabbed and shook it. "I'm Arthur. I guess we're roommates." He said this slowly, as he was still trying to process everything he had just heard. Truthfully though, he hadn't caught much of what was said or even recognized about half of the names that were mentioned. "And yeah I guess that's one way of looking at the myths," he ended up saying somewhat lamely. "

Fortunately, Hal didn't seem to have heard or really care about Arthur's lackluster response. "Roommates huh? I've always wanted one. I mean I've had few since I arrived last week, but each time I got a new one, they'd get transferred away within a two days. Weird" He paused, then said, still in a monotone and with a completely straight face, "But hey we're roommates now right? Race you for the top bunk. One, two, three, go!"

Before Arthur could react, Hal leapt out of his seat, dashed to his bed, and heaved himself into the top bunk where he sat with his legs crossed. He looked back down at Arthur who still hadn't moved from his spot. "I win," he said, matter-of-factly with barely any hint of excitement. He looked back down at Arthur, who still hadn't moved from his spot. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Nothing, Arthur started to say. But when he thought about it, he realized that wasn't true. Sure it was amazing that Greek mythology is real, and sure it was really cool that it turns out he's a son of Zeus like the ones in the myths (or at least he was supposed to be; he still hadn't figured out why Stephen was so sure he was), and sure it was really great that he was now attending a school for special kids where he would learn to hone his great powers.

But great powers were supposed to come with great responsibilities and Arthur was certainly not prepared for the latter, I mean he was only thirteen for crying out loud. He thought back to the conversation he had with Stephen and Valerie several minutes ago. Stephen had pointed out that Arthur and Valerie were unique because they actually cared that their parents wouldn't know where they were. Maybe that was why he had reservations about being a demigod hero when it was apparently so easy for the others. Because for them it wasn't a big deal to forget about their parents and leave behind their mundane lives but that wasn't the case for Arthur. Unlike the others, he actually liked his parents, Will and Eliza, and also unlike the others, he didn't want to leave behind his mundane life because he actually had a lot going for him in the real world.

No, not the real world, Arthur corrected himself. This...this Greek mythological universe and this school...this was the real world now, and this meant that it was actually he who had nothing going for him in the real world, not everyone else. This revelation sobered him greatly.

Meanwhile, his silence spoke volumes to Hal. Despite the fact that social interaction wasn't his strong suit, Hal knew enough to figure out that if you asked someone "What's wrong?" and they didn't reply, it meant something was wrong. He didn't know what was bothering Arthur, so he simply tried to think about what he would want a roommate to say if something were bothering him.

"Alright I know what we're going to do now," Hal said, as he hopped out of the top bunk bed. He went to his desk and retrieved a laptop. He then sat down on the bottom bunk bed then motioned Arthur to sit next to him, which he did. He opened the laptop and accessed some files, revealing the largest collection of movies Arthur had ever seen.

"Ok. The Lord of the Rings or The Dark Knight Trilogy?" asked Hal.

Arthur blinked. Though he recognized those names, he didn't really watch old movies.

"Uh...I don't know, I haven't seen either of them."

"Pick one."

"Uh...I don't know which one do you think we should watch?"

"No, Which one do you think we should watch _first_ ," Hal corrected.

Arthur blinked again. "Really?"

Hal nodded seriously. "The total runtime adds up to a little less than 17 hours. It's about 11am right now so if we start now, we'll finish at around 4 am in the morning, giving us at least 4 hours of sleep." With the way he rattled off the numbers, Arthur got the impression that he had thought this through. Arthur hesitated, having never stayed up late on a school night before.

"Don't we have homework or classes or-?

"It's summer school," replied Hal without missing a beat. "Come on, Lord of the Rings or Dark Knight?"

Arthur looked back and forth between the thumbnails. "Dark Knight?"

"Good choice," replied Hal. "If we start with the shorter one, we can make it to dinner between trilogies." Arthur now got the impression that Hal hadn't just thought this through, but had actually done this several times already.

And so Arthur and Hal began their 17-hour long movie marathon, stopping only for food, drinks, and bathroom breaks between movies. And for the first time since he flew into camp on a flying chariot, Arthur felt like he was at home.


	8. Residence Halls: 06

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys I'm gonna be honest with you here, the next few chapters are terrible. I started on them because I wanted to introduce the "culture" of the school as well as introduce main characters but looking back on it, everything just feels empty as fuck, as if I'm making Valerie go from house to house (which I am....but it's not supposed to feel that way). Unfortunately I've kinda invested too much time into this part to redo anything so I'm just gonna have to ask anyone who's reading this to just not let the Residence Hall chapters ruin this fic for you. Thanks for reading.

As Arthur entered Jupiter House, Valerie turned towards Stephen expectantly.

"So...are you going to tell me who my godly parent is?" she asked.

"What?" Stephen looked momentarily confused. "Oh right. Yeah I have no clue who your godly parent is."

Valerie stared, dumbfounded. "But...on the chariot ride. You said it was obvious who it was."

"Yeah I was just doing that to mess with my sister. It really makes her flustered when I flex my 'wisdom' or whatever."

"But...but have to know who it is. You knew my godly parent was my mother."

"Well string and premonition powers didn't sound like any male gods so I figured your godly parent was a goddess and dropped that detail so my sister would think I did know who it was...got you too didn't I?" Stephen sounded really pleased with himself.

"Well can't you at least send me to where you think I belong? You know like with Arthur?"

Stephen shook his head. "That was different. It was incredibly obvious who Arthur's godly parent was. I'm not allowed to say who I think your godly parent is if I'm not certain about it, not since..." he paused, then said seriously, "...not since I sent that one kid into Mars House."

Stephen's eyes glazed over as he stared into the distance and frowned, as if reliving a particularly painful memory. After several seconds of awkward silence, he finally snapped out of it.

"Yeah it was really fortunate the Apollo kids with healing powers were nearby at the time; really makes you wonder if Mars House and Apollo House are right next to each other by coincidence, or if that's by design."

Stephen went on to explain to Valerie that she would be officially placed in her house at the claiming ceremony right before dinner. Until then she was free to either hang out at Mercury House, which was traditionally where unclaimed kids stayed, or she was free to explore the campus. He pulled a map of the school out of his pocket and handed it to her.

"Just stay away from Mars House." He grabbed the map back from her, pulled out a marker, and drew a large red X where Mars House was. "And don't go near the Big House, that's where Dean D is...you probably shouldn't go into the woods either....or the climbing wall because of the lava..." Stephen continued to list the "forbidden" parts of campus, drawing a red X over each as he went along. He handed the map to Valerie, wished her luck, and left.

"Uh...thanks...I guess." Valerie inspected the map; most of it had been crossed out with red X's, leaving Valerie to choose between checking out the classrooms ("Mmm...no"), the houses ("Mmm...yes"), and the bathrooms ("Ehh...maybe?"). In the end, she decided to stick around the houses; she wanted to look at all the different buildings up close, see what kinds of children each god had, and hopefully figure out who her godly mom is supposed to be.

She flipped the map over. Along with descriptions of the other parts of campus, there was a section dedicated to listing which god each house was for. Luckily it seemed that it wouldn't be hard to visit only the houses for her possible parent, as all the houses for the goddesses were even-numbered, and therefore on the same side of the quad, so she wouldn't have to cross back and forth between buildings.

Huh, she thought to herself as she looked in the map again. Although she was slowly beginning to get used to her "Super Intuition", as she decided to call it, having random revelations pop into her head was still somewhat strange. They were like a "pulse" or "burst" of thoughts. Luckily as the day went on, they seemed to be occurring with lower and lower frequency. In addition, her hand had even stopped producing string and the string from earlier had fallen off by itself too.

The first on the list was Juno House, which was right next to Jupiter House. Valerie walked up and peeped inside the door.

It was dark and there was no one inside.

She turned back out and tapped the shoulder of a boy who was passing by.

"Excuse me, do you know where everyone from," she checked the map, "Juno House is?"

The boy sneered. "There's no one in Juno House. Hera doesn't have demigod children because she's loyal to her husband Zeus. Didn't you know what?" he said derisively.

Valerie winced. No of course she didn't know that, why would she be expected to know that? Like most kids she learned the basics about Greek mythology in school and had watched Disney's Hercules movie but beyond that she really didn't know anything. She never understood how some kids got so obsessed with that sort of thing. After all, it's not like any of it was real.

Okay so that last part turned out to be false, but still.

Next up was Ceres House, a light green building with a rooftop garden. The walls were lined with trellises on which tomato and cucumber vines grew. Valerie inhaled; the place smelled of grain, and reminded her of bread crusts

Valerie hated tomatoes, cucumbers, and bread crusts.

The next building over was Minerva House, which was very ordinary compared to the other houses. Colored plain grey and army green, the only thing remotely noteworthy about the building was that it was surrounded by a grove of small thin-leaved trees that Valerie hadn't seen anywhere else on campus. Could Athena be her godly parent? She thought about this for a moment: admittedly she wasn't the smartest kid she knew, she had good grades and liked to read but those didn't make her special. But to be fair, she didn't have any traits that screamed any other particular goddesses so it didn't seem unreasonable to suspect that she could be a daughter of Athena. Satisfied with this logic, Valerie opened the door and stepped inside.

The common area was just like the old library she would frequently visit when she was younger before it was closed. There were bookshelves full of real paper books , tables, chairs, and couches arranged around the bookshelves for the kids to sit at, and kids crowding around the fiction section, leaving the non-fiction section remained noticeably untouched. The whole scene made her feel extremely nostalgic and at home

A couple of guys and girls started to approach her. Almost all of them had grey eyes; in fact, almost everyone there had grey eyes, which Valerie thought was a weird thing to notice because it wasn't amazing or anything, just kind of weird.

One of the girls, who looked about seventeen years old and stood just a bit in front of the others, introduced herself. 

"Hi. I'm Sage. I'm the head of Minerva House. As I haven't seen your face before, I presume you're new. Welcome to the Institute." She extended his hand and Valerie shook it. Sage reminded her of the kids on the debate team, who spoke with the same confidence and assertive attitude whether they were on or off the podium.

She said hi and that she was just looking around and hoping to find out who her godly mom was; this last part elicited some reactions from the other kids.

"Hey we can help with that!"

"Yeah tell us your powers!"

Valerie looked around, somewhat taken aback by their apparent eagerness to help. She turned to Sage hoping she'd interject but she just subtly nodded as if to say "Go for it", leaving Valerie feeling rather put on the spot. Explaining something in detail to a group of strangers wasn't exactly what she wanted to be doing right now.

"Uh ok then." The room suddenly felt a lot warmer. "I guess the more interesting one of the two is..." she paused to find the right words. "So you know how when you're reading a word, you're not really reading each letter individually and spelling out the whole word in your head, you just kind of look at the word and you recognize it?"

There were several confused looks but also some thoughtful looks and slow nodding as well..

"Okay that's basically my 'power' I guess? All day I've been getting these 'ideas' but I don't really think about them they just seem to pop into my head and it's only after I try to think about where the idea comes from does it actually make sense to me. Kind of like a "the answer was inside you all along" thing I guess? I don't really know how to explain it better." She trailed off at the end.

The other kids muttered amongst themselves for a bit. One of the girls spoke up.

"The closest thing I can think of would be Apollo since he's the god of prophecy and it sounds like you can sort of see into the future. Other than that I can't think of any existing houses you'd fit into. Maybe..." she paused dramatically, "...maybe you're the first child of one of the fates?"

Valerie blinked as the girl rambled on about her theories. Nothing she said sounded right. For one thing, Valerie didn't feel like she could see into the future, she just knew things without having to really think about them. One by one the others presented their ideas as well, but Valerie zoned out as each idea seemed to make less sense than the last. One of them even suggested she was a daughter of Apollo since he was the god of prophecy and she had two dads which didn't make sense at all because, again, her power wasn't seeing into the future. She didn't want to appear disagreeable however, so she nodded along with whatever they said, occasionally throwing in an "Mhm" or "I see" for good measure. Privately though, she couldn't help but think that the supposedly wisest kids in the entire school were...well, not that wise? 

She looked at Sage, who had seemed more sensible than the others. Surely he had some idea of who her godly parent was? But Sage never said anything, just listened and occasionally nodded thoughtfully. About an hour or so passed until finally...

"So what's your other power? You said you had two?" asked the same girl who had piped up in the beginning.

"Oh right the other one. Yeah I can shoot string from my fingers like Spider-man? It feels pretty weird actually. You just think about doing it and then it just happens. Kinda like..." She struggled to think of a similar bodily function for comparison.

"...kinda like peeing," she heard herself say, then immediately winced at her analogy. 

She looked around to see what the others would have to say about this but instead of being greeted with the same lively discussion as before, she was met with an uncomfortable silence. Jeez, Valerie thought, everyone was staring at her as if she'd said something much worse.

Finally the same girl from earlier broke the silence, though this time she had much less to say.

"Like...Spider-man...?" she said almost fearfully.

"Yeah basically," Valerie replied absentmindedly. "I mean I know it's not actually the same 'cause Spider-man's web slingers are on his wrists but-"

She stopped, noticing that everyone had grown visibly tense.

"Hang on, do you guys not like Spider-"

Everyone tensed up again. Valerie exhaled.

"Wait...seriously?"

Nobody said anything for a moment. Then much to Valerie's surprise, Sage, who had stayed quiet since she first introduced himself, spoke up.

"I'm not sure any of us can think of any gods affiliated with spi- strings and premonitions. The best I can recommend is that you go to the head of Trivia House since Hecate is the goddess of magic and, well, technically all of our powers could be considered magic. I'd suggest you head there as soon as possible." 

She shot Valerie a meaningful look at the last part. Valerie took the hint and thanked everyone before hastily making her way out of Minerva House. 

Once she got outside, Valerie took a deep breath. What had all that been about? She tried to reason things out. It was actually pretty straightforward: each time the children of Athena had all become noticeably tense, she had referenced Spider-man. There was only one possible explanation...

The children of Athena collectively had an irrational fear of Spider-man!

Wait a minute, no that couldn't be right. It had to be something else. Maybe spiders? Yes! They were afraid of spiders. Yeah come to think of it, that answer made way more sense.

She groaned inwardly. Valerie had only been here for an hour and had already successfully managed to alienate an entire house of students. At least, she thought, things could only get better from here.


	9. Residence Halls: 10

Since she figured Sage had only been trying to get her to leave Minerva House, Valerie ignored her advice. The next building down the line was Diana House, a massive hunting lodge that seemed to be completely made of silver. As it appeared to be empty, she skipped it. While she walked past, she heard a loud voice coming from across the quad. It was coming from Apollo House, which looked almost completely normal except for the fact that it was completely golden and, more interestingly, covered with loudspeakers that were currently broadcasting some obnoxious poetry by someone named...Roopy Core?

She reached Venus House. On the outside, it looked almost exactly like Minerva House, but red and white instead of grey and green. As she reached for the door, she hesitated. She vaguely remembered that Aphrodite was the goddess of love. Did that really sound like her? She was also the goddess of beauty too. Would it be narcissistic of her to even think that Aphrodite could be her mom? Would she even fit in with children of Aphrodite? What if they turned out to be like the popular kids in early 2000s high-school movies, the ones that were always lead by some shallow blonde cheerleader.

"Hey you!"

Valerie was pulled out her thoughts by a series of aggressive shoulder taps. She turned around and came face to face with an asian girl about a year older than her.

"Can I help you with something?" the girl asked, in a tone that implied the last thing she wanted to do was to help Valerie with anything.

"I uh..."

Valerie stared, speechless. The girl was impossibly beautiful; literally impossible, as somehow despite the position of the sun, her face was perfectly lit and photogenic. Also there was something peculiar about the way she was glaring down at her with her arms crossed. It took a moment for Valerie to realize it was because the girl held herself like a model posing for a camera. In a moment, she realized that she was looking at a daughter of Aphrodite and that there was no way she could be one.

"What's going on here?"

Another voice spoke; this one was kinder and came from inside the building. Valerie turned to see another girl peering through the doorway. She was older than either of them, about 17 or 18, with short blue hair that was shaved at the sides of her head. Despite their differences, she had the same "perfect lighting aura" and "model posing" as the first girl did.

"I caught her trying to sneak in," said the first girl. "I've never seen her before. I think she's new and unclaimed but still, it's obvious she's not one of us."

Valerie's face burned. It was pretty obvious what "one of us" meant and even though she knew that not being incredibly attractive didn't make her unattractive, the comment still stung. The blue-haired girl seemed to notice this.

"Hey, whoa, not cool Michelle," said the blue-haired girl. "We've had this conversation before remember? Real beauty is on the inside, and anyone welcome here even if they're not a child of Aphrodite."

She sighed and turned towards Valerie. "Sorry about that, why don't we start over? Hi. My name's Ally. I'm the head of Venus House but honestly I like to think of myself more as...a group mom." She opened the door wider. "Why don't you come on inside and let's see what we can do for you?"

Valerie hesitated. She looked at Ally, who was holding the door and welcoming her inside, turned back to Michelle, who didn't seem very happy but kept quiet, shrugged, then stepped inside.

Venus House's interior was beautiful in a surreal sort of way. Most of the common area, the floors and walls, the furniture, all the marble statues of swans and naked people, pretty much everything except the bouquets of red roses that sat in vases around the room were white. Valerie looked around at all the pretty kids in the room. They were just like Ally and Michelle, looking magically perfect while doing the most mundane things such as standing or sitting around. One guy was actually picking his nose but somehow managed to still look cute while doing so.

Ally led them to some plastic chairs surrounding a white coffee table. As Valerie began to sit down, a funny little statue on the table caught her attention. It was a statue of woman stepping on a man who was on all fours. The woman was completely naked except for her high heels and the man was wearing some kind of weird mask that went around his whole head except for a hole where his mouth was.

Man classical art sure is weird, Valerie thought.

Once they were all comfortably seated, Valerie explained that she had been peeping around the different houses partially out of curiosity and partially because she wanted to find out who her godly mom was. She talked about her visit to Minerva House and all the elaborate theories the children of Athena gave her for who her godly mother could be. During this time, Michelle twiddled her fingers and glanced around the room, while Ally merely stared at her with a thoughtful expression. After about half an hour (the Athena children had presented A LOT of crazy theories), she finally reached the part where Sage told her she should go to the leader of Trivia House...

"...but I don't know, it felt like she just wanted me to get out of there so I came here anyways," she finished. She inhaled sharply and glanced between Ally and Michelle, anxiously awaiting their response.

After about a moment of silence, Ally finally said, "Yeah I believe her."

"You do?" Valerie exhaled in relief.

"You do?" Michelle turned towards Ally with an expression of disbelief.

"Mmhmm," Ally nodded, then towards Michelle. "Unless you think she made up a half hour's worth of godly mom theories for just this kind of situation. Plus she said she was new and you said so yourself that you've never seen before and I know I haven't. Anything I'm missing?"

Michelle considered this for a second, and then got up.

"Sorry about earlier," she said tersely, then left. She hadn't sounded very sorry.

Valerie opened her mouth a bit but said nothing. It seemed that no matter what she did, she ended up making people angry at her. 

"Don't worry about her," said Ally. "It's just that as children of Aphrodite we tend to attract 'fans' that can sometimes be problematic which is why it's an unofficial rule that non-children of Aphrodite aren't allowed in if they're uninvited. But you're new so there's no way you would have known that and even then it wasn't cool of Michelle to assume you were a stalker or something."

"Yeah..." Valerie replied cautiously. Surely she couldn't be off the hook that easily?

Her suspicion must have shown on her face because Ally grinned at her and said...

"It's okay. Look, I get it. I know the stereotype. Aphrodite's the goddess of love and beauty so everyone expects us to be led by some pretty boy or I don't know, a shallow blonde cheerleader."

Ally got up and began to pace around in front of Valerie.

"But then they get to meet me instead and to be honest, that's the reason I wanted to be the leader of Venus House in the first place. I wanted to show everyone that we're not just a bunch of ditzy hot teens, that beauty isn't just about the physical and love isn't just about romantic love, and that it's not just the children of Aphrodite that can be beautiful and loving, so can anyone else." She stopped pacing around and looked down at Valerie.

Valerie swallowed hard. Despite the fact that Ally had been nothing but kind to her, she was also a little intimidating. Maybe it was because since Ally started talking, her smile had gradually transitioned into a look of serious conviction. Maybe it was because now that she was looking up at her from where she was sitting, Valerie could tell that Ally (who still looked like a posing model) was extremely fit, probably from years of hero training or something. Or maybe it was just the fact that she hadn't spend several minutes trying to convince Valerie that she was somehow a child of Hypno (something about demigod dreams being visions and Valerie's premonitions counting as dreams because they were "daydreams"). Whatever it was, Valerie got the impression that Ally was someone she should take seriously. She stared at her with her mouth slightly open.

Noticing the look of awe on Valerie's space, Ally's serious demeanor broke and her smile returned.

"Sorry about that. It's just...a thing I feel really strongly about you know? Now about your godly parent thing..."

She leaned against the wall and struck a thinking pose. After just a few seconds, she stood up straight.

"Well the truth is...I'm not sure who your godly mother could be. As much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree with Michelle that you probably aren't a daughter of Aphrodite."

This had been obvious to the start from Valerie but out of politeness, she pretended that this was news to her. Privately, she appreciated that Ally seemed to consider her being a daughter of Aphrodite to be an actual possibility.

"I think..." Ally continued musing, "...I'm actually gonna agree with Sage on this one."

Valerie looked up. So Sage hadn't just been trying to just kick her out? 

"Really?" she asked.

"Yes..." Ally replied tentatively. "I feel these things are usually intuitive, the children of Athena just like to speculate a lot because they think it's fun to make connections between things."

"That was putting it rather mildly," Valerie thought to herself.

"But I know Sage personally and I agree with her. Now I'm the smartest person in this school so I'm just going off of common sense, and I do think that since your godly mother isn't obvious, there's a good chance you're a daughter of Hecate, seeing as she's the goddess of magic in general."

Valerie nodded along as if she were listening. In reality she was thinking about how everything had turned out to be the opposite of what she had been expecting. She had been eager to meet the children of Athena, whom she figured were the smartest kids in school, only to find their wisdom questionable (to say the least) and then alienate all of them. And just now she had been expecting Ally to be a ditzy popular girl who was full of herself but instead was pleasantly surprised to find out she'd been understanding and intelligent as well.

With the advice of two house leaders backing her up, Valerie decided her next course of action would be to head to Trivia House. Ally escorted her out.

"And just remember," she said as Valerie stepped through the doorway, "if you ever need anything, feel completely free to come to me. Venus House will always be inclusive to everyone in the school."


	10. Residence Halls: 16/14

Trivia Hall was a large and glorious mansion. Several spires poked up above the roof. Several tall and beautiful stained glass windows were lined up next to each other Most notably, the entire building appeared to be constructed out of some magical bricks that were mostly jet black that glowed with a dull metallic sheen except at the edges, where they shined with a brilliant violet light.

The whole thing probably looked really amazing during the night, but right now, in broad daylight, it all just looked like a bunch of cheesy special effects.

With some effort, Valerie pulled open the tall black double doors and stepped inside with a feeling of mild unease. Was she going to have an awkward encounter with another mob of teens or get accused of creeping around again?

Turns out it was actually, neither. The common area was completely empty except for one other person. On the far side of the room, a guy with brown-hair who looked about seventeen years old lay across a large purple armchair, his back resting against one armrest, and his feet hanging over the other. In his hands he held a video game console which he appeared to be currently invested in. Valerie took a quick glance at the screen: there appeared to be a fox with a ray gun fighting Mario.

"Umm...hello?" she said tentatively.

The boy's eyes darted towards her for instant before darting back to his game.

"Uhh...hang on...just give me a second..."

Valerie stood there awkwardly waiting for the guy to finish his game. For awhile, there were no sounds except those from the game and that of button tapping. Suddenly, the button tapping intensified.

"No no no no! Fuck fuck fuck! Dammit!!"

The boy dropped his console into his lap, sharply inhaled, then exhaled. Finally, he turned towards Valerie.

"Alright so what are you in here for?"

Valerie totally intended to tell him about why she came here and what she'd been trying to do but in the moment she simply said...

The guy slowly turned his head up to look at her...

For the next few hours, Will (apparently that was his name) taught Valerie how to play "Smash Bros 8" which, as far as Valerie could tell, was a kind of fighting game that featured every character from every game ever. She found herself learning rapidly, memorizing each character's abilities, knowing how to predict, and even understanding how matchups between certain characters should be played out. She started to lose with less lives and even started winning. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she found all of this strange, as she didn't really play video games and when she did, she certainly never picked them up as quickly as she was doing so right now. But like any thirteen year old, Valerie didn't dwell too much on this because she was having too much fun. It took several hours for her to even notice that nobody else had come in and out of that room (thanks to her super intuition) and remember what she had come for in the first place.

"Hey wait a minute...where's the head of the house? Or anyone else?" Valerie asked.

"Hermione G. and the rest of Trivia House are in class right now." Will replied.

"Wait a second, the head of your house is named Hermione G? Also....why aren't you in class then?"

"Yes, her name's Hermione G. Also, it's fine. Valdez is chill. As long as I turn in my workshop projects on time, he'll still give me an A."

"Hold on..." said Valerie, who had ignored the second part of what Will said . "The leader of Trivia House, the place for children of Hecate who is the goddess of magic, is named...Hermione G?" she asked incredulously.

Will gasped, then said in an exaggerated manner, "Oh my gods you're right! I've never noticed that before! You're the first person in the history of the universe to point that out!" 

Then he suddenly switched to a serious tone of voice and said, "Yeah, mom's attracted to guys who are into magic and stuff and for the past 30 years that's been like 10% regular people, and 90% Potterheads. We've got several Hermiones, Dracos, Nevilles, Siruses, Remuses, Albuses...oh and of course Harrys. We've got like nine fucking Harrys. It's like the dumbest shit ever."

Valerie looked amused. "You guys have nine Harrys?"

Will nodded. "Yep. There's Harry B., Harry E., Harry C., Harry T., Harry P., Harry G., Harry V., Harry Z., and of course..." He coughed once. "...Harry D."

Valerie suppressed a giggle. Then her face fell as she remembered what Will said and what that meant; he noticed this.

"What's wrong?"

Valerie quickly told him about what had happened at Minerva and Venus House and how she had been told at both places that she should come here and ask for the opinion of the head of Trivia House.

Will responded with a loud scoff.

"That's what you're here for? You don't need Hermione G. for that. Any idiot could help you with that." He looked around, then remembered everyone else was in class. "Ah shit, I'm the only idiot here!" He sighed. "Alright fine. Give me a rundown of your powers."

And so for the third time that day, Valerie described her strange super intuition and tried to give a demonstration of her string abilities: this time rather than spilling out onto the floor, she actually managed to shoot the string out several feet.

"Hmmm..." said Will once she had finished. "So...you have discount Spidey sense and discount Spidey web-slinging."

"Uhh...yeah. Basically. So I don't know, does any of that sound like the powers of a child of Hecate?"

"Oh!" Will perked up a bit. "You're here to...you thought..." He breathed in deeply, then exhaled slowly. "No. It's probably not a Hecate thing. Here's how this stuff works..."

He set the controller down next to him; and that was when Valerie knew things were about to get serious.

"Okay so yeah, all the gods have different attributes and yeah, Hecate is the goddess of magic. But when it comes to demigod powers it's not so simple. I mean when you think about it, all demigod powers are 'magic.' Like a Poseidon kid waterbending or a Hephaestus kid firebending. But that's not like 'magic magic' you know? That's like manipulating the Mist of telekinesis."

"You guys can do telekinesis?" asked Valerie.

"Yes," replied Will, then in a very melodramatic voice he said, "but very few of us possess such a rare and precious gift." 

He extended a hand outward. For a moment nothing happened. Then a bag of chips shot out of a nearby hallway into Will's hand. He tried to open the bag with his hands, but couldn't, so he used his telekinesis. The bag burst open and chips spilled everywhere. Will made a vague hand motions and chips began floating towards his mouth.

"It is truly...the greatest honor...with great power...comes great responsibility," he said in between each chip he ate.

He swallowed the last one. "What was I saying again? Oh right. Too long didn't read: strings and spidey sense don't really count as 'magic magic' so you're probably not a Hecate kid."

Valerie was stunned. She had spent so much time at the other houses and had been told she would find the answers here, only to end up exactly where she'd started. 

"But then...who's my godly mother supposed to be?"

Will shrugged. "Not Hecate."

Valerie quickly thanked him for everything and left. Behind her, Will waved good-bye and said that she was welcome to come back anytime if she was ever "down to Smash...that is, down to play Smash I mean." But Valerie wasn't really listening; she was too busy being disappointed; an entire afternoon down the drain just like that (admittedly a good part of it had just been playing video games...but still!) not to mention her experience with Minerva House still left a bad taste in her mouth. To make matters worse, her super intuition was now a nuisance more than anything, forcing her to pay attention to whatever random details got caught in her line of sight. 

Maybe sitting still would help. Valerie looked around and sat down at the closest available spot, which happened to be the steps to the porch of the house adjacent to Trivia House. On the door was the number 14 which Valerie vaguely knew belonged to one of the goddesses but couldn't remember which one exactly. The house was small, resembling a simple log cabin. This struck Valerie as strange, as all of the other houses were much larger and obviously designed to potentially accommodate a large number of students, even if their corresponding goddesses didn't have mortal children (such as Hera). So why would this one be so much smaller tan-

Ugh! There it was again! Valerie groaned in exasperation and buried her face into her lap, hoping that if she didn't look at anything, her super intuition wouldn't call attention to it. It didn't work, and she found herself staring intently at the green cotton fibers on her shirt when she felt a tap on her left shoulder.

"Are you alright?"

Valerie looked up. There was a girl standing next to her: she had brown hair, brown eyes, and wore a plain brown dress, but her head was wrapped with a bright red shawl. It suddenly occurred to her how stupid she looked and she blushed a bit before quickly recovering her composure.

"Yep. I'm fine. Totally fine." She stood up and casually leaned against one of the wooden posts in an effort to appear nonchalant. "Just the usual uh...well you know..." She didn't want to admit that she had been moping just because she couldn't find out who her godly mother was.

The girl tilted her head in an inquiring manner. For a random stranger, she was surprisingly inquisitive, which put Valerie on guard. Despite this, she also didn't want to straight up lie either.

"...family issues and stuff." That technically wasn't a lie.

The girl nodded sympathetically. "I understand. Families can sometimes be problematic. Our family in particular can be _very_ problematic." Her speech was somewhat stiff and formal for someone her age.

"Our family?" Valerie thought. Oh right, because all the gods are related to each other and this was a school for demigods; this girl was obviously another demigod and figured she was one too.

Even though that wasn't what she meant by "family issues," Valerie stopped to consider this for a moment. On one hand, Will and Ally had seemed alright, definitely not "problematic." On the other hand, all of Minerva House seemed to want nothing to do with her and she still didn't know what she did wrong, if anything. What if most of the school turned out to be like that? Worse yet, what if most of the school turned out to be like that AND she turned into one of those characters in books and movies who get bullied relentlessly until later on when they-

"But, and I hope my advice proves helpful," the girl continued, interrupting Valerie mid-thought, "I've found that for most mortals, the family they're born into does not matter so much as finding a place they're able to call home, a place where they feel they truly belong. But if not, you are of course always welcome here," she added, gesturing at the building behind them. She gazed at Valerie intently, as if anticipating a certain response. Valerie turned away, mildly unsettled by her gaze

"Uhh...yeah sure. Thanks I guess?" Valerie said, not really knowing what to make of it. It all just sounded like some generic "thought provoking" stuff and she didn't really think about it.

"So uh..." she tried to change the topic into something serious. "What's your..." she turned back around, but the girl had disappeared. "...name?" Well that had certainly been very peculiar. Valerie wondered if she would run into any other random people who spoke formally, gave generic "deep" talks, and then disappeared without warning.

It was evening by this point. During her remaining time before dinner she simply explored the rest of campus, seeing everything the school had to offer ("Holy shit! Is that real lava?!"). She still wished that she could have figured out who her godly mother was, but her feelings of disappointment gradually faded as the time for the claiming ceremony drew closer, and she figured it wouldn't be long before she could learn who her mother was anyway. After another two hours, it was finally time for dinner.

The dining pavilion was massive. Its layout was similar to that of the Great Hall at Hogwarts, only instead of there being four long tables for the students, there appeared to be five long tables and everything was outdoors instead. Upon closer examination, she found out that there were actually 20 tables, with each long table comprising four tables lined up back to back to each other. At first she wasn't sure where she was supposed to sit, but then a satyr (yeah, apparently those were real too) directed her to the "1/6/11/16" row, explaining that traditionally, unclaimed students sat with the children of Hermes at Table 11. She felt distinctly out of place. Towards the back at Table 16 she spotted Will on his console, trying to squeeze in some gaming time before dinner began. Way at the front she could just barely make out Arthur sitting at Table 1; he appeared to be listening intently to a blond guy who was talking to him.

Dinner itself was amazing. A team of wood nymph servants-

"What?" cried the boy next to her, "No they aren't our servants! The ancient Greeks were very progressive. They never owned any slaves-" the girl next to him whispered something in his ear. "Oh...I see. Well at any rate they nymphs aren't our servants, they work for the school because they want to."

Dinner itself was amazing. A team of wood nymph volunteer workers brought out platters of a wide variety of food. Then everyone took a moment to burn some of the food for the gods because "they liked the smell" or something like that. But for Valerie the coolest part of the dinner was the magical goblets that filled up. She quickly finished her dinner in the first 10 minutes, then spent the remainder of the lunch hour trying out precise combinations of various drinks for fun. She was just about to try the "40% Dr. Pepper, 50% Root Beer, 10% Coca-Cola" when it was announced that the claiming ceremony was about to begin.

A dapper looking centaur wearing a tweed jacket and a waistcoat called her and Arthur out by name and asked them to step up onto the podium to the side. They both stepped onstage, stealing nervous glances at each other. Then they turned to face the rest of the school. Valerie could feel all the eyes burning into her. There was a moment of tense silence.

Valerie tugged at her collar a bit. "So uh...do we just stand here or...?"

She was answered by a clap of thunder and a bright flash of golden light to her right. She turned and saw a glowing symbol of a thunderbolt above Arthur's head. From the way he would tilt his head up slightly before looking back at the crowd, Valerie could tell he wanted to look up to see what was above his head, but was unsure if he was allowed to.

"Hail, Arthur Pendergast, son of Zeus, god of the sky and lightning," the centaur's voice boomed. The entire dining hall applauded and there were some cheers coming from Table 1. 

Valerie applauded along everyone else. She looked at the crowd in front of because, well, isn't that what you're supposed to do when onstage? She saw the girl from earlier, the one in the brown dress. Unlike the other students, she wasn't seated at the tables, but standing in the back of the dining hall.

She thought back to what the girl told her earlier that day, something about the family you're born into not being as important as finding a place to call home, which was ridiculous of course. Of course your actual family was important! She would much rather be Will's sister and live in a creepy dark castle or Ally's sister and live in some overly decorated dorm than say...live with all the children of Athena in what was admittedly probably the best dorm she'd seen all day, with its calm aesthetic and cozy library-

Wait...

Valerie inhaled sharply. A thought had occurred to her, something that could explain everything. She hadn't really believed in the "homes over families" thing, but it had at least made her rethink an assumption she had made and consider a possibility she ignored earlier. Everything made more sense now, even her powers. Her super intuition, which gave her the uncanny ability to make observations. And her strings... She suddenly remembered a myth she had read as a young child, about how spiders were created when the goddess of weaving won a contest. Yes, her powers, which earlier had seemed random and unrelated, now made complete sense. At that exact moment, there was a flash of silver light above her head...

"Hail, Valeria Rix, daughter of Athena, goddess of wisdom, war...and weaving," said the centaur. Valerie looked up and found herself staring at the feet of a silver hologram of some kind of bird floating above her head. She tried to get a better angle but whenever she moved her head, the hologram moved along with it. The dining hall applauded. There was no cheering from Table Six.

With the ceremony concluded, everyone headed to their dorms for the night. Valerie somewhat reluctantly followed the other children of Athena back to Minerva House. It was only once they entered the common area that she said anything.

"So...guess I'm one of you guys now huh?" she said with false cheeriness. There were a few obligatory lackluster welcomes, some polite nods, but most just stared at her quietly from a distance. Valerie had enough experience with teen social circles to know what this meant: she was being excluded.

"Valerie. Can I talk to you for a moment?" It was Sage, she stood off to the side and was beckoning Valerie to join her. Valerie sped walked to her location, eager for an excuse to get away from the others.

"Oh god is this going to be what I think this is going to be about? Sorry. Not god...gods? Oh gods? Is that a thing you guys say here?"

Sage didn't answer, she simply looked at Valerie as if trying to find the right words to say. Finally, she said...

"Are you familiar with the myth of Arachne?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Oh," Sage seemed pleasantly surprised. "Good. So...then you can understand why you're getting such a chilly reception then."

Valerie had been so busy thinking about how her myth explained her powers and godly heritage, she had completely forgotten to think about how it explained the way the Athena kids were acting, but now that Sage brought it up, Valerie could tell that due to some mythological reason, children of Athena feared or despised spiders. However, she didn't want to cause trouble.

"Chilly reception? Oh uh well actually I hadn't really noticed-"

"Valerie," Sage interrupted, "you don't need to play dumb with me. I know there's no way you haven't noticed this because that's literally your power."

Her power? She stared blankly. Sage noticed this and continued.

"The one you talked about this morning. The one that made you notice things you typically wouldn't notice and even helped you solve that math problem. It's essentially wisdom as a superpower and it's the same power I have. We don't really have a name for it, we just call it "super wisdom" or "super intuition." Basically your wisdom becomes magically enhanced and you just think of things you wouldn't have thought of otherwise. It's different from "super knowledge", which basically lets you learn and recall facts much more easily, as it's significantly rarer and harder to utilize effectively."

Valerie tried to think back to earlier that morning, which now felt like so long ago. Ms. Gauss had asked her to solve a geometry problem, which she did, but failed to use the proper names of the theorems. She hadn't magically remembered the theorems, she had come up with them on the spot and solved the problem, which was why she didn't know the names of the theorems. The other incidents had also been somewhat similar, now that she thought about it. In every case, her super intuition never magically provided her with information out of nowhere, it always made her realize something she already knew or notice something she was always looking at. Like right now for example, she was just starting to realize the implication of what Sage had said.

"Wait a minute, but if you knew what my power was, then that means..."

"Yes, I knew you were a daughter of Athena this whole time."

Valerie was dumbfounded. She had wasted a whole afternoon trying to figure this stuff out only to find out she literally could have had the answer in the very beginning.

"Please say sike right now."

Sage looked a bit uneasy. "I apologize for not having told you earlier. It's just that, and I'm sure you've noticed this as well, but despite being the children of the goddess of wisdom, the truth is most of us are blessed with knowledge rather than wisdom. I knew instantly that you had the same super intuition as I did, and after that it wasn't difficult to figure out your string shooting was actually some kind of weaving ability. For obvious reasons I didn't want to divulge this because, well...you know the expression 'Don't shoot the messenger?' Well there's a reason that saying exists if you know what I mean."

Valerie nodded. "I think I know what you're getting at yeah."

Sage looked a bit relieved. "Thank you for understanding. Luckily that's all in the past now. And I want you to know that if you ever have any trouble with our siblings, you can always come to me and I'll have a talk with them."

Valerie swallowed hard. Hearing "our siblings" from Sage really drove the point home that these were her family now and she was stuck with them for the whole summer. Sage led her to her new room, which of course she had to herself because nobody would have wanted to be her roommate. Mentally exhausted from everything she'd done that day and content that everything had been resolved, Valerie was just glad to finally be able to go to sleep.


	11. Mutual Disrespect

In the following days, Valerie quickly accustomed to life at Demigod Academy.

The academy's curriculum was surprisingly similar to that of a normal school's. Apparently basic math was considered a universal skill required for everyone, including Greek heroes, and despite the fact that Greek mythology was real, most of science was actually still correct (and the rest were simply constructs provided by The Mist to fill in the gaps). The classes that were the most unique were "History" (which Valerie thought should be changed to "Greek Mythology Literature", since that was what it really was) and "Ancient Greek". Valerie learned from the boy sitting next to her that their teacher for Ancient Greek would be the very same centaur who had declared her a daughter of Athena at the claiming ceremony, and that his name was Chiron. The boy had said this so seriously, that Valerie guessed that "Chiron" was supposed to be someone important, and she nodded back seriously while trying to sound impressed.

Surprisingly, Valerie found that she did well in all her classes, especially Ancient Greek. In fact she often found herself winning the daily Kahoot! rounds that Chiron would host in class, such as this one right now:

"Now as I've mentioned earlier, the winner of the Kahoot will earn extra credit points for the class. And the winner is...Mike Hock!...Wait a minute..."

The whole class lightly chuckled except for Valerie, who had both hands clasped over her mouth as she tried, very unsuccessfully, to stifle her snickering as she shook with laughter.

Chiron signed. "Congratulations Ms. Rix, you will receive five extra points on your next test," he said resignedly. Valerie pumped her fist victoriously then high-fived the people sitting around her while the rest of the class looked on, thoroughly amused.

The only people who didn't join in the laughter were the other children of Athena who happened to be in the same class. The advantages their "super knowledge" provided in learning a new language had been offset by the fact that they, like most demigods, were dyslexic, and this made them somewhat bitter.

Which was Valerie thought really unfair. After all, she and probably lots of other kids were jealous of their super knowledge without being bitter over it. It seemed unfair that they should resent her for something she had no control over either, such as her lack of dyslexia.

Or her string powers.

Her situation with the other Athena kids hadn't changed. They didn't relentlessly bully her or even ignore her, the way kids tended to do in YA fiction and anime. Instead they were much more subtle about it, generally avoiding or ignoring her if they could: she often had to ask questions twice before getting an answer. It wasn't anything dramatic and certainly not enough to go to Sage about, and even if it had been, Valerie wasn't the type to go to higher-ups for help anyway. At most it was just mildly annoying that she often had to ask questions twice before getting an answer.

Besides, it wasn't as if she didn't have other people to hang out with. By sheer coincidence, due to the fact that Tables 1 and 6 were adjacent to each other, one day Valerie ended up sitting next to Arthur and that blond kid he was always hanging around.

"Hi, I'm Valerie," Valerie introduced herself. "I'm a daughter of Athena...I mean that's kind of obvious I guess, since I'm sitting here."

"I'm Hal," the blond kid replied. "I am neither gay or asexual," he added matter-of-factly.

There was an awkward silence. Valerie and Arthur exchanged glances.

"Um...okay. I see. Very cool, Valerie said eventually. "Uh...mind if I ask why you mentioned that? Just you know, out of curiosity and stuff?"

Hal explained that last year, he had played a game of truth or dare in which he had been dared to reveal the name of someone he had a crush on, but he couldn't answer because he didn't have any crushes. As a result, there were lots of theories about his sexuality from the Athena kids.

"...and ever since then it seemed logical to clarify this to any children of Athena to avoid potential misunderstandings," Hal concluded. Valerie waited for a moment to see if he would reveal that he was actually joking but Hal looked and sounded absolutely serious.

"Well that's...that's..." Valerie was momentarily at a loss for words. Then she remembered the first time she entered Minerva House and how she had been bombarded with all kinds of different theories which had all turned out to be false. "...that's...very relatable actually. Wow I can't believe I'm saying that."

Hal nodded in understanding. Valerie beamed at him. They looked at each other and in that moment they knew that they had just become good friends, bonded through a mutual understanding of-

"Um..." Arthur interrupted their bonding moment. "You know they're right there right?" He motioned towards the Athena Kids on the other side of Valerie, who were busy eating and pretending they weren't listening. "It's just you know, you two are talking about them and-" Valerie and Hal looked at him, and he faltered a bit. "Um...actually you know what? Never mind."

After that the three of them began to sit next to each other during meals at the same spot, at the ends of Tables 1 and 6. Initially Hal remained reserved around Valerie. But over the next few days, as Hal grew more comfortable around her, Valerie discovered that he could actually be quite talkative when it came to his "nerdy" interests. In fact, she was somewhat surprised that he didn't get along with the Athena kids, since they seemed to have many interests in common.

"We do. However I've found that more important, we differ in our opinions and interpretations of the books we read, especially when it comes to the validity of certain 'fan theories.' In my time here, I've found that schools aren't really like how they're portrayed in fantasy books. People don't really bully you just for being different, they merely ignore you because your existence makes them uncomfortable," he replied in his now familiar monotone.

As usual, Valerie was surprised and impressed by how he always managed to say the most relatable things. At the same time, she and Arthur winced, expecting some immediate retribution of some sort from the other Athena kids who were sitting right next to them, while Hal seemed unaware of any potential consequences to what he said. In fact, as a general rule, he seemed to not care what anyone really thought about him. Over time, Arthur and Valerie realized that they quite enjoyed listening to Hal speak enthusiastically about his interests (at least, as enthusiastically as anyone with a monotone could speak), and he in turn enjoyed the way they acknowledged his existence and treated him like a person. The three of them quickly became close friends.

One morning, the three of them were sitting at their usual spot, chatting while eating. The topic of conversation happened to be the latest installment of a popular ongoing book series.

"I haven't read the series yet, but almost everyone I know who's read it says it's really good," Arthur was saying. "Have you read it?" he asked Valerie.

She shook her head. "Nope. Not much of a reader and YA fantasy just isn't really my thing. How 'bout you Dex?" she asked, knowing Hal was an avid reader and the answer was likely yes.

Hal nodded. "Yes. All 54 books." Then he continued eating.

Valerie and Arthur waited for him to continue, expecting him to say how much he loved the series (why else would anyone read all 54 books?) or something to that effect. That was another thing about Hal: he sometimes didn't know about the unspoken rules of conversations. For example, if someone asked you if you've read a book, they were really asking you if you've read a book _and_ what you thought about it.

"They're probably the worst books I've ever read," he answered simply. Then he continued eating again.

There, he did it again. "Well what didn't you like about them?!" she pressed on.

Hal set down his fork. Arthur shot her a glance, and Valerie felt instant regret. Once Hal started talking about something he was passionate about he was unlikely to stop any time soon.

"Well," he began. "In the beginning of City of Bones-"

Just then, Valerie became aware of something happening in the background and looked up; Arthur followed suit and Hal turned around to see what they were looking at. There was some sort of commotion at the Apollo table, followed by all the Apollo kids leaving the dining hall. To Valerie's surprise, everyone else got up too and followed them out. Instinctively not wanting to be left behind, the three of them followed the other Zeus and Athena kids.

"What's going on?" Valerie wondered aloud at nobody in particular. As usual, the Athena kids ignored her.

Someone, one of the daughters of Zeus, spoke up from behind her. "Claire, one of the Apollo kids had a vision."

"What did she see?"

"A girl being chased by a monster. She's on her way here, right now."


	12. The Black Owl

Upon arriving at camp, Katrina couldn't help but feel....extremely disappointed.

When she had told that she would meet "others like her" here, she had taken it in a more literal way. The people surrounding her may have been children of the gods too, but they were nothing like her. It was written clearly on their faces. Everyone around her had the same look on their face as they pestered her to tell them what happened, as if they were expecting something from her. Thankfully right before she had to do anything, the bell rung, and the centaur with the bow told everyone to go back to class. Right as this happened, the pain and exhaustion overtook her, as if her body was finally catching up, and she collapsed.

She woke up lying on a couch inside of a house. There was a centaur standing on the other side of the room; he introduced himself as Chiron and told her that she had been poisoned by the manticore but that the medics from the Apollo cabin had extracted most of it from her body. He gestured at the table in front of her, on which there was plate of what looked like a small cake or brownie and a tall glass of....something.

"Have some," he said, "They'll make you feel better."

She took a bit of the small cake and a sip of the drink and was surprised to find that neither tasted how they looked: they tasted like the cheap pepperoni pizza and large Coca-Cola that her debate team coach had treated them to after they won first place in the debate tournament. The food and drink themselves hadn't tasted very good, but Katrina always associated the taste with victory.

She now felt much better, the pain had faded away completely and she felt completely energized. The centaur waited patiently for her to finish eating and drinking before finally speaking.

"Now, I suspect that you'll have much to talk about, and I'd like to listen to everything you have to say. From the beginning if possible."

She examined the centaur's face. From the beginning? That was going to be difficult, because for as long as Katrina could remember, she had always had this power.

The power to read minds!

Well, no, that wasn't true, although it often felt like that was the case. More accurately, she had the power to read body language, usually facial expressions. It was rather difficult to explain.

"It's like this..." she said, as she struggled to find the right words. "If you see someone smile, without thinking about it, you recognize that they're happy. Maybe if you look closely you'll see their smile is strained and you can sense that they're actually uncomfortable. My power's like that, but I'm able to read even more subtle expressions and therefore be able to detect more complicated thoughts." Right now she could tell by looking at Chiron's face that he was beginning to understand.

She didn't remember when it began, it had always been something she could do, and learning how to read people came as naturally to her as learning how to read words. One day when she was about three, she asked the preschool teacher when they would learn "reading faces", thinking that this was something everyone could do. But the look her teacher had given her told her this wasn't the case, and she learned to never talk about her ability with anyone else. But Chiron was different; she could tell by reading his face that he was he was kind trustworthy, and most importantly (in her opinion anyway), intelligent: he was someone she could talk to who could actually understand.

"So...you can interpret microexpressions," he said it as a statement, not as a question.

Katrina nodded. "Basically yeah."

Chiron paused to think about this for a moment. When he was finished, he asked Katrina to summarize the past few days for him.

Despite having the ability to tell what people were thinking just by looking at them, Katrina had actually led a fairly normal life up until about a few days ago, when she had been attacked by a manticore after school. She had instantly recognized from the look on its face that it had killing intent but the monster had been too fast for her. Fortunately the school guidance counselor Mr. Underwood had come to the rescue and revealed that he was a satyr who possessed magical powers.

Katrina had always suspected there was something more to Mr. Underwood than he let on. Despite looking like he was in his late twenties, he would always act like someone who had about twice as much life experience. Chiron was the same too, but more. On the outside, the man part of him looked to be about in his 40s, but Katrina could tell from his face that he was actually much older. How old was he though? 100? 200? She couldn't tell; she had never met anyone that old and therefore had no basis for comparison.

Mr. Underwood then proclaimed that Greek mythology was real and that the two of them would have to embark on a journey across America to reach a school for others like her. Any normal kid might have needed time to process such a massive information dump, but Katrina could tell Grover's face that he was telling the truth and that time was of the essence, so she quickly agreed to go along with him.

They headed east, travelling mainly by high speed rail. Evading the manticore had actually been fairly easy. Katrina quickly came to find out that Mr. Underwood's, or Grover, as she came to know him as, mild-mannered demeanor belied his true power, as he was very adept at playing the reed pipes and other forms of woodland magic. Perhaps his greatest power of all was something Katrina called "The Scream," where he would create what was best described as a wave of fear that caused mass pandemonium amongst humans and would send the manticore running off in fear...until it would wore off. Then it would pop back up again days later in whatever city they were at. This strategy worked for almost the entire trip until the very end, when the manticore had managed to catch them off guard, poisoning them both and incapacitating Grover with those deadly tail spikes. It was at this point that something new was triggered inside her: whether it was some demigod ability or just an adrenaline rush, Katrina didn't know, but somehow she found the willpower to carry an injured Grover through the forest, relying on stealth to evade the manticore, all while being poisoned. She had mostly succeeded until the very end, when the manticore caught up to them, but then luckily Peleus and the rest of camp had showed up to save them.

Funnily enough, the manticore had actually been the least of their worries. The most difficult part of the journey had been trying to travel without attracting unwanted attention. In a very unfortunate twist, it turns out the Mist had warped public perception so that everyone believed Katrina was the victim of a kidnapping by Grover, the leader of a pedophile sex cult, and that the manticore was a concerned citizen who was out to exact his own brand of vigilante justice. As a result, during the whole trip, they were forced to lay low to avoid detection.

"Ah yes. Unfortunately I can confirm that the Mist sometimes creates such...undesirable illusions" said Chiron when he heard of this. He sounded as if he was speaking from personal experience. "Not to worry, I shall simply manipulate the Mist to erase this little incident from public memory and clear Mr. Underwood's good name."

Satisfied with what he had been told, Chiron thanked and dismissed her, telling her that she was free to explore the campus as she wished, but that she would be required to show up for dinner and the claiming ceremony afterwards. 

Things quickly went downhill after that. Unlike Chiron, whom Katrina instantly recognized to be intelligent and respectable, the other demigods at the school were...not those things. In fact, if anything they seemed below average, and Katrina found herself unable to resist starting conflicts. One incident in particular played itself over and over in her mind. It was when she passed the Athena kids and overheard one of them loudly proclaiming that she thought Katrina must have had poison powers based on nearly no evidence whatsoever! Of course she had to say something. Then of course rumors began to spread about her: she didn't know exactly what they entailed but she could tell by the way people's faces shifted when they noticed her that they were nothing good.

Then the claiming ceremony happened. With everything that had been going on, she hadn't really given any thought towards who her godly parent would be but Athena made sense. It explained why she cared greatly for wisdom, and also why she became easily irritated when it became clear that certain people lacked any. Moreover, it explained her ability: wisdom could be described as having the ability to properly judge something based on experience, and she was doing exactly that: determining what people were thinking based on her experiences with what different microexpressions indicated.

Too bad the same couldn't be said of the other Athena kids. Well not all of them, her roommate Valerie was pretty alright. But the rest of them! Like really? Spiders? They were actively excluding one of their own siblings because she shared superficial similarities with spiders? It was one of the most ridiculous things she'd ever witnessed and she hadn't been afraid to make her opinions known.

Now it was her second day here at school and Katrina had started to actively dread facing the other students. But surprisingly, things took a turn for the better. Meeting Hal was like a breath of fresh air for her: from the way he talked about how demigods inherited powers from their godly parents, she could tell that his mind worked differently from those of the other students and she respected that.

Then Valerie asked about any powers she had.

"My powers?"

She looked around at the people who were once again looking at her expectantly, and grinned in anticipation.

Then she told them the truth.

"Well...basically I can read people's expressions and tell what they're thinking. It's kinda like being able to read minds actually."

She could see from their faces that most of them didn't believe her, which was precisely what she had been expecting. Good. Now she could go back to finishing her breakfa-

"How does that work?"

It was Hal. His response caught Katrina off guard.

"You mean you...believe me?"

"Well..." Hal paused and looked up while thinking. "I suppose you could have been lying. But I don't think it would have made much sense to lie about something so easily disprovable as mind reading. And I don't think you would be dumb enough to try that." He looked back at Katrina. "Why? Were you lying?"

"No!" Katrina said, taken aback by his blatant honesty and rationality. "No...I wasn't." Her expression softened.

"Uh...right. You wanted to know how that works. Well...so if you see someone smile..."

And so for the second time that day, Katrina found someone she respected enough to open herself up to.


	13. Face Reading

Upon arriving at camp, Katrina couldn't help but feel....extremely disappointed.

When she had told that she would meet "others like her" here, she had taken it in a more literal way. The people surrounding her may have been children of the gods too, but they were nothing like her. It was written clearly on their faces. Everyone around her had the same look on their face as they pestered her to tell them what happened, as if they were expecting something from her. Thankfully right before she had to do anything, the bell rung, and the centaur with the bow told everyone to go back to class. Right as this happened, the pain and exhaustion overtook her, as if her body was finally catching up, and she collapsed.

She woke up lying on a couch inside of a house. There was a centaur standing on the other side of the room; he introduced himself as Chiron and told her that she had been poisoned by the manticore but that the medics from the Apollo cabin had extracted most of it from her body. He gestured at the table in front of her, on which there was plate of what looked like a small cake or brownie and a tall glass of....something.

"Have some," he said, "They'll make you feel better."

She took a bit of the small cake and a sip of the drink and was surprised to find that neither tasted how they looked: they tasted like the cheap pepperoni pizza and large Coca-Cola that her debate team coach had treated them to after they won first place in the debate tournament. The food and drink themselves hadn't tasted very good, but Katrina always associated the taste with victory.

She now felt much better, the pain had faded away completely and she felt completely energized. The centaur waited patiently for her to finish eating and drinking before finally speaking.

"Now, I suspect that you'll have much to talk about, and I'd like to listen to everything you have to say. From the beginning if possible."

She examined the centaur's face. From the beginning? That was going to be difficult, because for as long as Katrina could remember, she had always had this power.

The power to read minds!

Well, no, that wasn't true, although it often felt like that was the case. More accurately, she had the power to read body language, usually facial expressions. It was rather difficult to explain.

"It's like this..." she said, as she struggled to find the right words. "If you see someone smile, without thinking about it, you recognize that they're happy. Maybe if you look closely you'll see their smile is strained and you can sense that they're actually uncomfortable. My power's like that, but I'm able to read even more subtle expressions and therefore be able to detect more complicated thoughts." Right now she could tell by looking at Chiron's face that he was beginning to understand.

She didn't remember when it began, it had always been something she could do, and learning how to read people came as naturally to her as learning how to read words. One day when she was about three, she asked the preschool teacher when they would learn "reading faces", thinking that this was something everyone could do. But the look her teacher had given her told her this wasn't the case, and she learned to never talk about her ability with anyone else. But Chiron was different; she could tell by reading his face that he was he was kind trustworthy, and most importantly (in her opinion anyway), intelligent: he was someone she could talk to who could actually understand.

"So...you can interpret microexpressions," he said it as a statement, not as a question.

Katrina nodded. "Basically yeah."

Chiron paused to think about this for a moment. When he was finished, he asked Katrina to summarize the past few days for him.

Despite having the ability to tell what people were thinking just by looking at them, Katrina had actually led a fairly normal life up until about a few days ago, when she had been attacked by a manticore after school. She had instantly recognized from the look on its face that it had killing intent but the monster had been too fast for her. Fortunately the school guidance counselor Mr. Underwood had come to the rescue and revealed that he was a satyr who possessed magical powers.

Katrina had always suspected there was something more to Mr. Underwood than he let on. Despite looking like he was in his late twenties, he would always act like someone who had about twice as much life experience. Chiron was the same too, but more. On the outside, the man part of him looked to be about in his 40s, but Katrina could tell from his face that he was actually much older. How old was he though? 100? 200? She couldn't tell; she had never met anyone that old and therefore had no basis for comparison.

Mr. Underwood then proclaimed that Greek mythology was real and that the two of them would have to embark on a journey across America to reach a school for others like her. Any normal kid might have needed time to process such a massive information dump, but Katrina could tell Grover's face that he was telling the truth and that time was of the essence, so she quickly agreed to go along with him.

They headed east, travelling mainly by high speed rail. Evading the manticore had actually been fairly easy. Despite appearing mild-mannered most of the time, Mr. Underwood, or Grover, as she came to regard him as, turned out to be extremely powerful. She learned that he was very adept with his reed pipes and in extreme circumstances, he could create what was best described as a wave of fear that caused mass pandemonium amongst humans and would send the manticore running off in fear...until it would wore off. Then it would pop back up again days later in whatever city they were at. This strategy worked for almost the entire trip until the very end, when the manticore had managed to catch them off guard, poisoning them both and incapacitating Grover with those deadly tail spikes. It was at this point that something new was triggered inside her: whether it was some demigod ability or just an adrenaline rush, Katrina didn't know, but somehow she found the willpower to carry an injured Grover through the forest, relying on stealth to evade the manticore, all while being poisoned. She had mostly succeeded until the very end, when the manticore caught up to them, but then luckily Peleus and the rest of camp had showed up to save them.

Funnily enough, the manticore had actually been the least of their worries. The most difficult part of the journey had been trying to travel without attracting unwanted attention. In a very unfortunate twist, it turns out the Mist had warped public perception so that everyone believed Katrina was the victim of a kidnapping by Grover, the leader of a pedophile sex cult, and that the manticore was a concerned citizen who was out to exact his own brand of vigilante justice. As a result, during the whole trip, they were forced to lay low to avoid detection.

"Ah yes. Unfortunately I can confirm that the Mist sometimes creates such...undesirable illusions" said Chiron when he heard of this. He sounded as if he was speaking from personal experience. "Not to worry, I shall simply manipulate the Mist to erase this little incident from public memory and clear Mr. Underwood's good name."

Satisfied with what he had been told, Chiron thanked and dismissed her, telling her that she was free to explore the campus as she wished, but that she would be required to show up for dinner and the claiming ceremony afterwards. 

Things quickly went downhill after that. Unlike Chiron, whom Katrina instantly recognized to be intelligent and respectable, the other demigods at the school were...not those things. In fact, if anything they seemed below average, and Katrina found herself unable to resist starting conflicts. One incident in particular played itself over and over in her mind. It was when she passed the Athena kids and overheard one of them loudly proclaiming that she thought Katrina must have had poison powers based on nearly no evidence whatsoever! Of course she had to say something. Then of course rumors began to spread about her: she didn't know exactly what they entailed but she could tell by the way people's faces shifted when they noticed her that they were nothing good.

Then the claiming ceremony happened. With everything that had been going on, she hadn't really given any thought towards who her godly parent would be but Athena made sense. It explained why she cared greatly for wisdom, and also why she became easily irritated when it became clear that certain people lacked any. Moreover, it explained her ability: wisdom could be described as having the ability to properly judge something based on experience, and she was doing exactly that: determining what people were thinking based on her experiences with what different microexpressions indicated.

Too bad the same couldn't be said of the other Athena kids. Well not all of them, her roommate Valerie was pretty alright. But the rest of them! Like really? Spiders? They were actively excluding one of their own siblings because she shared superficial similarities with spiders? It was one of the most ridiculous things she'd ever witnessed and she hadn't been afraid to make her opinions known.

Now it was her second day here at school and Katrina had started to actively dread facing the other students. But surprisingly, things took a turn for the better. Meeting Hal was like a breath of fresh air for her: from the way he talked about how demigods inherited powers from their godly parents, she could tell that his mind worked differently from those of the other students and she respected that.

Then Valerie asked about any powers she had.

"My powers?"

She looked around at the people who were once again looking at her expectantly, and grinned in anticipation.

Then she told them the truth.

"Well...basically I can read people's expressions and tell what they're thinking. It's kinda like being able to read minds actually."

She could see from their faces that most of them didn't believe her, which was precisely what she had been expecting. Good. Now she could go back to finishing her breakfa-

"How does that work?"

It was Hal. His response caught Katrina off guard.

"You mean you...believe me?"

"Well..." Hal paused and looked up while thinking. "I suppose you could have been lying. But I don't think it would have made much sense to lie about something so easily disprovable as mind reading. And I don't think you would be dumb enough to try that." He looked back at Katrina. "Why? Were you lying?"

"No!" Katrina said, taken aback by his blatant honesty and rationality. "No...I wasn't." Her expression softened.

"Uh...right. You wanted to know how that works. Well...so if you see someone smile..."

And so for the second time that day, Katrina found someone she respected enough to open herself up to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional excerpt that was left out of the main chapter because it clashed tonally/thematically.
> 
> Once Katrina was finished, there was some silence, as the other three stopped to think about what she said. Then...
> 
> "Ok wait so you can kinda sorta but not really read minds by looking at people's faces?" asked Valerie.
> 
> "Yes," Katrina replied.
> 
> "Ok wait exactly how much mind reading can you read? Can you read my mind? What am I thinking right now?" Valerie tried, very poorly, to put on her best poker face.
> 
> Katrina took a quick look at her then groaned.
> 
> "I can read enough to know you're about to make a dumb joke, but not enough to know what the dumb joke is," she said. Then just as Valerie was about to open her mouth, she added, "And I don't want to find out what it is either."


	14. Sherlocked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: The following chapter contains middle-school romance that some may find "too real." Reader discretion is advised.

Unlikely friendships weren't uncommon amongst at Demigod Academy; in fact arguably the exact opposite was true: as Hal put it, "Turns out sending ragtag teams of demigods out on dangerous quests where they get into life threatening situations is really good for creating bonds that lead to lifelong friendships between people who normally wouldn't get along with each other." 

Despite this, people were still surprised when they found out about Hal and Katrina's friendship. It wasn't just because of Katrina and her reputation for hating nearly everyone she came across, but also because of Hal: it wasn't that the other students disliked him per se, but his lack of a filter made it difficult for them to hang around him long enough to really get to know him. So naturally people found it strange that the girl who never got along with anyone was getting along with the boy nobody got along with.

The truth was quite simple actually: Katrina liked Hal because she found his sometimes brutal honesty refreshing, a fact that everyone in their English class discovered one day. Their teacher, a tree nymph named Ms. Maple, had given them an "I Like Blank" assignment where they were to team up in pairs, talk to each other, then write a paragraph on what they liked about on another which they were then to read aloud in front of the whole class. Valerie had just finished reading her paragraph on Arthur in which she included her account of "The Battle of Foothill Junior High: A Tale of Epic Proportions," much to everyone's enjoyment. Everyone that is, except for Arthur, who now had to rapidly rewrite his paragraph on Valerie because he had also written about their fight with the empousai.

Now it was Katrina's turn to read her paragraph.

"I think Hal's pretty alright because he always speaks the truth without hesitation, rather than avoid it out of fear of what others might think about him...the way some people might," Katrina said, glowering at the entire class at "some people." Hal looked up at her as she went on, looking mildly content. Almost everyone else looked at their tables and hands, feeling uncomfortable, though not as uncomfortable as they felt when Hal read his paragraph.

"I appreciate Katrina's presence because she doesn't ignore or resent me when I say something that pops into my head, like when I mention how two characters in a book-"

At that point Ms. Maple intervened, hastily telling Hal what a "swell job" he'd done and calling on the next student to present.

After class was break time. The gang headed off to their usual hangout spot together, as they did every day. This time however, someone was following them. Valerie of course was the first to notice the sound of an extra pair of footsteps following closely behind them.

"Psst...guys!..." she whispered, "Now don't turn around, but I think there's someone following us." Naturally, the other three immediately turned around. "No no! I said DON'T turn a-" She gave up and turned around with the others. The four of them came face to face with a girl with plain brown hair and glasses: Valerie and Katrina immediately recognized her as Irene, a fellow daughter of Athena who had arrived at school a few days after Katrina. As such, very little was known about her.

She seemed intimidated by them, but she didn't back off. Instead she just nervously pushed up her glasses and walked up to them.

"Um...Hal?" she asked shyly while looking at him. 

"Yes?" Hal tilted his head slightly; he wasn't used to people trying to talk to him.

"Umm...." she didn't say anything, instead she pulled out a slightly crumpled folded piece of notebook paper from her pocket, handed it to Hal while avoiding eye contact, then ran off.

The four of them stood there in silence just watching her for a moment. Then suddenly...

"Mine!" Valerie cried out. She and Katrina both reached for the note at the same time, but Valerie got to it first, shooting out several lines of string from her fingers that curled themselves around the note and yanking it away from Hal just as Katrina's fingers were about to close around it. She unfurled the note, took one look at it, and instantly bursted into laughter. Katrina instantly took the opportunity to snatch the note away from her. She skimmed it, let out a groan of utter disgust, then handed it back to Hal. Finally, Hal (along with Arthur, who was peering over his shoulder) got to read his note, which read....

**To Hal,**

**I really like you and I think you're really smart and stuff. I want you to be the Castiel to my Dean, the Remus to my Sirius, the Keith to my Lance, the Stiles to my Derek, the Bucky to my Steve, and the Sherlock to my Watson. Will you be my boyfriend? If yes, meet me at the library in Minerva House after dinner for a date.**

**Love,**

**Irene**

Hal studied the note for a bit; the other three stood there waiting for his reaction. Finally, Valerie couldn't wait any longer.

"Well? What do you think?!" she prompted. Hal just kept staring at the letter.

"This letter appears to contain a non sequitur. She begins by comparing us to several fictional characters who have strong friendships with each other. But then she follows that up by asking if I want to be her boyfriend. So does she want to be good friends or does she want me to be her boyfriend?"

"It means she wants to date you," Katrina replied. "But that doesn't really matter because...okay look, I didn't want to the bad guy here but Hal, have you considered that this...you know...isn't real?" In the background, Valerie was wildly making X's with her arms to signal her to stop but Katrina ignored her and kept going. "Like maybe it might be some kind of cruel prank?" In the background, Valerie threw her arms up in frustration. Hal didn't say anything, he just stood there, thinking quietly

"So...what are you going to do?" Valerie asked a moment later.

"Well...I think Katrina makes a very valid point. But there's a chance this letter is serious, and if it is, I wouldn't want to hurt her feelings. So even though I think Katrina is probably right I'm still going to go anyways."

He looked to Arthur and Valerie for approval, then all three of them looked at Katrina, who shrugged.

That evening Hal showed up at Minerva House and there was Irene waiting for him in the library, sitting next to the teen fiction section.

"H-hi!" she greeted Hal when she noticed him. "Thanks for meeting me here. To be honest, this is just where I like to be, surrounded by books. I'm like to read and do other nerdy things."

Hal had been concerned their date might involve anything he wasn't prepared for but luckily it turns out Irene was content with just relaxing in the library together and talking. She explained that she noticed him when he read his paragraph in class: he was only able to get one sentence out, but the that one sentence had really resonated with her. As they talked they both learned that they liked to read the same types of books. In addition, Hal learned about Irene's background.

"Before I found out I was a demigod, the other kids would always bully me for being a nerd...for being a different." She looked a bit sad, but then she looked at Hal and smiled. "But things are going to be a lot different now, I can feel it."

She looked at the time, and noticed that several hours flew by and it was time for Hal to return to Jupiter House for the night.

"Would you...would you want to do this again sometime?" she asked, as he got up to leave.

"Yes. Spending time with you tonight has been very enjoyable." 

Irene beamed. "So um...does this mean...you know...that we're a thing?" She twiddled her fingers.

Hal didn't know if he felt that strongly yet, but he did know that he liked spending time with her and that he didn't want to hurt her feelings, so he said yes. She smiled again, quickly kissed him on the cheek, and said goodnight.

Over the next few days, things began to change. Irene started sitting with the gang during meals (Katrina moved over so that she could have the spot next to Hal). Outside, she preferred to spend her time with just the two of them.

"I'm really introverted," she explained, "being around other people a lot just feels like it drains my energy."

So Hal agreed to spend more time with her, just the two of them. Arthur and Valerie quietly accepted this, but not Katrina, who pulled him aside to talk to him one day.

"Hal...I don't know about this," she said. "Your new girlfriend...are you sure this is what you want?"

"I know you like to be judgmental of people," he said, "but just because you dislike her, doesn't mean that I have to."

To anyone else, he sounded like his usual stoic self, but Katrina could tell from his face that she'd offended him. She was surprised; until now she didn't think Hal got mad at...well, anything. Unsure of what to say, she simply went with, "Fine...whatever makes you happy."

Afterwards, Hal gradually started hanging out with other members of the gang less and less. During the quality time spent with each other, Irene revealed more about herself.

"Apparently I'm a sapiosexual. It means that I'm attracted to smart people like you," she winked. "I guess it makes sense, since I'm a daughter of Athena. You know I always felt I was different from everybody else."

Their relationship continued moving along smoothly like this over the next few days. Then a week it started, their relationship inexplicably began going downhill. Hal didn't say anything, but he could feel the change: for no apparent reason, they were getting along well less frequently. They didn't have any arguments, just the occasional disagreement over books; most of the time they just seemed apathetic about each other. Then finally...

Hal entered the library. About an hour ago they had both has some argument; it hadn't been over anything important, he had just tried to tell her something about a show they both watched when she had gotten upset and left, and he hadn't seen her ever since. He came here, expecting to find Irene waiting for him as she usually did, so that he could apologize. Instead her seat was empty, and there was a note on the table where she usually sat.

**Dear Hal,**

**I don't really think it's working out between us. At first I thought you understood me, but lately it feels like you've become cold. I'm sorry but I'm breaking up with you.**

**\- Irene**

That was it. Apparently she couldn't be bothered to tell him in person, or at the very least include more details in her letter. Hal didn't know how to feel, he simply sat there trying to process what had happened.

Just then he noticed Katrina enter his field of view. That was strange; Katrina never came to the library if she could help it. So what was she doing here now? He watched as she approached.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," he replied. There was an awkward silence, as neither have spoken to each other in a few days.

"What are you doing here?" he asked finally.

"Well...on my way back I noticed Irene heading to her room. She seemed upset about something and I knew that she usually met up with you here, so I put two and two together and figured something was up."

He didn't want to say it aloud. He didn't have to; she read everything from his face.

"Did you know this would happen?" he asked.

"Yeah..." she replied. "Well kinda. I mean it's not like I can read minds and figure out that she was gonna ask you out then break up with you a week later. It's a lot more complicated than that."

Katrina went on to explain her side of things. Growing up she had met a lot of people like Irene, and their faces always exactly the same, telling the same exact story. They were people who saw themselves as "nerds," or outcasts, and felt they were different from everyone else.

"They see people like us: you know, smart...aloof...and it's like a wish come true. To them, we're not like real individuals, just wish fulfillment characters: their own real life Sherlock." Her expression softened. "That's why we gotta stick together."

"Her letter," said Hal, "She wrote that she felt that I'd changed...but it has only been one week. How could that be?"

"She got to know who you were. Once that happens, the fantasy is over, and then she realized you weren't what she wanted." Katrina seemed to really know what she was talking about, like she was speaking from experience.

"Why didn't you tell me all this before?"

Katrina shrugged. "I didn't want to be one to ruin things for you, and I wasn't sure you were going to listen to me anyway."

"I would have," he said, and Katrina could tell that he meant it. "And from now on, I'd like you to tell me everything, with brutal honesty."

"Brutal honesty huh?" she grinned. "I can do that."

"Now come on, let's get a soda or something," she said, getting up from the table and gesturing for him to follow.

The two of them left Minerva House, walking side by side. 

"I'm sorry by the way," Katrina said, "about you know, your relationship being over."

"Oh it's fine," Hal replied, "and I'm sorry I didn't heed your early attempts at warning me about the inevitable failure of a preteen relationship that was ultimately one sided and fueled by the fetishization of awkward and socially aloof men as portrayed in popular nerd culture."

Next to them, the Apollo loudspeakers had started playing music; they were blasting "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The two of them sat in the dining hall, quietly sipping on soda. It was Katrina who broke the silence first.
> 
> "So...if you don't mind me asking, what were you two arguing about earlier?"
> 
> "Oh that? I told her Destiel wasn't canon and for some reason she got upset."
> 
> "I don't know what that is but really? She got got mad at you for that?"
> 
> "Yes and I'm uncertain why because it's factually correct. It was revealed that one of them had romantic feelings for the other but it was never reciprocated and then that one guy ended up dying."
> 
> "Ah so you insisted you were right when you were right? Tsk tsk. Rookie mistake. Take it from me, a girl who can read people's faces: people HATE it when you do that."
> 
> "Yeah and now it's over and it's only been a week."
> 
> "Dude, it's okay. We're thirteen. That's how long all relationships last at our age."


	15. The Son of Poseidon

By the following day, everything returned back to normal. Arthur thought back to last night, when Hal had returned to their room much earlier than he usually did and declared that his relationship with Irene was over. Despite the fact that Hal was normally a very stoic person, Arthur was still surprised by how seemingly dispassionate he was about the whole thing.

"I am fine thank you," he replied when Arthur asked if he was okay, "It wasn't much of a relationship to begin with, and Katrina talked me through it and gave me some good advice; she's a really good friend."

Arthur was surprised. Like the rest of the gang, he was one of the few students at school who didn't actively dislike her. But "a really good friend?" That sounded pretty generous coming from Hal. Arthur tried to think of any times when Katrina had been a "good friend" or at least gave him good advice. It didn't take very long, as she had only come close one time.

It was a few days ago. The four of them were racing to class and Katrina had crashed into Arthur, stepping on his foot in the process. Being the good kid he was, Arthur instinctively began to apologize when Katrina took one look at his face and cried out "No! Don't do it!"

Arthur froze to avoid doing whatever "it" Katrina was referring to. "Uh...don't do what exactly?"

"Apologize," she answered. "You do it all the time, even when it's not your fault. Just now you were about to apologize even though I crashed into you and I should be the one saying sorry."

"Oh...yeah you're right I guess. Sor- (Katrina flashed him another look). I was just trying to be nice I guess."

"Yeah I know, and that's nice and all but...you shouldn't be afraid to speak your mind," she looked at him sternly, though not unkindly. "Now come on, let's get to class. If we're the last ones there we'll have to sit next to Tommy Ato and he always smells like stale ketchup for some reason."

Arthur knew that despite her rough attitude, Katrina meant well. Most of the other students had readily dismissed her as "too judgmental" or "just a bully" but Arthur knew better. She could indeed by quite judgmental at times, but Arthur knew that was just a result of her ability to read faces: many thoughts that people tended to keep to themselves were displayed plainly on their faces for her to read, it was no wonder she was quick to judge. From his experience, bullies tended to harass people they simply didn't like just for fun: Katrina never disliked anyone without a good reason, and it was never just for fun.

It had now been two weeks since they've arrived at school and Arthur had grown quite used to life at the academy. All the strange buildings, the Greek mythology-focused classes, the kids walking around with superpowers, and even the mythological creatures who ran the school, now all felt very familiar and commonplace. Arthur didn't even care that he was spending summer at school. Most of the material they were learning was interesting and more importantly, the classes weren't as stressful since apparently the school didn't consider grades to be very important.

"Why do I even care about your grades?" Dionysus repeated the question posed by one of the other students in Arthur's class, sneering as he did so. "Quite frankly I couldn't care less if you failed your classes. However, it would certainly be in your best interest to try, since failing to learn anything here would likely result in your death in the outside world, or worse, some eternal punishment from angering the wrong god." He took another sip of his Diet Coke, as the class stared in terrified silence.

Classes were also more enjoyable due to the fact that he shared all his classes with Hal, Valerie, and Katrina. In fact the four of them had recently decided to form a study group as well. First, they had to find a good place to meet.

"What about the library at Minerva House?" Arthur suggested. "It's right next to where you two live, and plus we'll be surrounded by all the really smart and helpful Athena kids."

The other three considered this for just a second before all of them spoke at once.

"I must stand firmly against this proposal."

"Good idea, but how about instead of that, we did literally anything else?"

"I think I'd rather bathe in centaur's blood."

Okay, so the location was still up for discussion; the four of them ran through their options. Jupiter House's common area didn't have really good spots for a group of people to sit at, none of their rooms also had places for all four people to sit at. 

"You know," said Valerie, after the four of them spent a moment quietly thinking. "I think I have a good place in mind."

A few minutes later, the four of them were standing in front of a log cabin situated between Bacchus House and Trivia House. 

"Here we are!" Valerie gestured grandly at the log cabin. "A girl I met on our first day here said that I was welcome here anytime, and I assume she totally meant that literally and not figuratively."

"What is this place?" Katrina asked. Neither she nor Arthur were familiar with this House.

"This is uhh..." Valerie looked to Hal.

"This is Vesta House, the honorary House for the goddess Hestia," Hal finished.

That name was unfamiliar to Arthur. "Which one was that one again? Is she an Olympian?"

"She was, but she was replaced by Dionysus. I do not remember the details."

The four of them ventured into the log cabin and found...nobody. There was nobody there at all.

"What the...where is everyone?" Valerie cried as she looked around. She noticed that unlike the other Houses, there were no hallways leading to students' rooms.

"Oh, I thought you knew. As a virgin goddess, Hestia has no children and in fact, rarely interacts with humans ever. Not that any of this matters to the Athena kids, who insist that every child of Hephaestus with fire powers 'probably could' be a child of Hestia. There are also rumors that Hestia sometimes appears at the school, taking the form of a girl wearing a red shawl, but those claims are unconfirmed."

"A girl? Red shawl?" Valerie's eyes widened. "But that's...no!...unless?...but it can't be!...but what if?..." she went on like this for quite sometime, clutching her head in disbelief. As she did so, Katrina looked on in mild amusement.

Meanwhile, Arthur looked around the Vesta House. It appeared to be one big room that looked like the inside of a log cabin. There were several armchairs and a large rectangular table on top of an enormous shag rug. In the back of the room was a fancy fireplace, its flame blazing even though it was the middle of the day.

He turned around, everyone seemed content, and since Hestia herself hadn't appeared out of nowhere to smite them, they were all agreed: this was to be their meeting place outside of classes.

As they entered their third week at school, their classes started to get more serious, in particular Arthur, Valerie, and Katrina had finally started to learn how to use weapons in Physical Education. Their PE teacher was a geriatric Satyr who went by "Coach Hedge" who looked, and acted, like an army drill Sergeant. 

"Alright cupcakes, listen up! I'm sure by now you've all fantasies about going out and slaying monsters with your magic sword," he paused and leered at them. "Well I want you to forget about all of that stuff right now!" He explained that this class wouldn't be about swords, which were "for Democrats," and instead they would learn how to fight using spears, which were for "real Republicans!" According to Hedge, the spear was the single greatest weapon in all of human history, having been used by humans since tens of thousands of years ago, when they used it to hunt Pleistocene megafauna to extinction. In the back of his mind, Arthur wanted to ask Coach Hedge how he knew so much about paleolithic times and how prehistory could possibly be reconciled with Greek mythology, but like everyone else in class, he was too intimidated to say anything

"If you wanna kill some other unarmored opponent, then okay fine use a sword, but if you want to be a real hero and slay some fucking monsters, then use a goddamn spear. Of course we'll be starting you out on wooden staffs because Chiron thinks 'Oooh they're too young!' or 'What if they eviscerate themselves?'"

And that's what they ended up doing: over two hours of tedious training exercises with a long wooden staff. Fortunately, their teachers were sympathetic, as they remembered Coach Hedge from a time when they were kids and the school was still a summer camp.

"Oh gods, you guys are training under Hedge now?" said Mrs. McLean, their Greek Mythology teacher, after asking why everyone looked much more exhausted than usual after their first day of training. "I'm surprised he's still around. He was actually the demigod who brought me to camp when I was you guys' age. Wow really so he's like a real coach now? I can't believe they'd let him around children....uh please don't tell him I said that. But you know, I think you kids are pretty lucky, he really mellowed out after he found a wife and settled down."

If this was mellowed out Coach Hedge, Arthur was glad he never got to meet the satyr back when he was in his prime.

The second day of training was even worse, because everyone was still tired from the first day. Today, the class had been broken up into pairs to take turns practicing overhand thrusts at their partner, who would block with a shield. Arthur's arms ached as he hoisted his staff into an overhand grip for what felt like the millionth time. He looked off to the side at Valerie and Katrina, who had rapidly picked up spear training and were handling the exercises with ease; apparently this was something all children of Athena had in common. Hal was also doing fine, having arrived at the academy a year earlier and had some training under his belt already. The only person in their group who was really struggling was him.

Arthur thrusted, and Hal blocked. "Urgh...how many do we have left?" he moaned rhetorically. Hal of course took his question literally.

"You have completed 9 out of 10 repetitions of the 6th out of 14 sets, putting at just about halfway done," he answered helpfully. Arthur wanted to retort with a sarcastic "Gee, thanks!" but he was too out of breath. Instead, he merely began to lift the staff over his shoulder for the 70th time. As he pulled back, his grip loosened, and the staff flew backwards out of his hand. Arthur turned around just in time to see the staff hit the ground then bounce up slightly to bonk another student in the back of the head. His hands instinctively flew to his mouth.

"Oh no! I'm so sorry! Are you alright?"

The other student turned around, groaning and clutching his head in pain. Arthur recognized him as a Son of Poseidon named Derek.

"Ah it's alright," he looked up and down Arthur. "Oh you're that new son of Zeus huh? Heh. Go figure."

Arthur was caught off guard by his comment. "What?"

"Oh you know, because in Greek mythology all Zeus does is ruin everything by going around and having sex with women?" Derek noticed the blank look on Arthur's face. "It's just a nerdy mythology reference, forget I said anything."

Arthur nodded, and was about to dismiss this weird exchange when...

"Your statement is inaccurate." It was Hal. "While it is true that Zeus has done what you've mentioned, his main role in mythology was that of an impartial judge. This is most evident in The Iliad, when he is one of the few gods to refuse to take sides, as well as his decision in the Olympian Court's landmark case of Demeter v. Hades."

Derek raised his hands in mock defeat. "Alright man whatever you say. Sorry I offended you so badly." 

Hal tilted his head, apparently confused. "I was not offended, I was just pointing out that your statement was inaccurate." 

"Dude come on, I was just kidding. It's a joke, don't take it so seriously," Derek replied. At this point, the people around them (including Valerie and Katrina) were starting to listen in. In particular, Arthur noticed that Katrina had that look on her face that she got whenever she was about to start arguing with someone.

This just seemed to confuse Hal even more. "So you don't actually think what you said about Zeus is true?"

"What? No of course that stuff's true. Everyone knows that."

"But that doesn't make any sense: either you truly believe it and therefore I'm right to correct you or you don't truly believe it and it's just a joke, but it can't be both."

This logic didn't go over very well with Derek who responded with, "Wow you must be really fun at parties. Like I said, it was just a joke dude. Maybe if you knew that, you'd have more friends, no offense."

That did it. Katrina immediately started marching over, with Valerie right behind her trying unsuccessfully to hold her back.

"Alright dude, we get it: you don't like children of Zeus, and you also can't admit when you're wrong. Now why don't you fuck off and we can all go back to pretending you don't exist."

"Oh yeah you'd like that wouldn't you?" Derek leered at Katrina, it was the same one she'd seen hundreds of times before, from people who were too stubborn to admit they were wrong. "Yeah I know you. You're that new Athena girl that nobody likes. What's the matter? I thought you didn't have a problem with brutal honesty."

"I call out people for their insufferable behavior. You use your 'brutal honesty' as a shield to avoid admitting when you're wrong about something. We are _not_ the same." For a fleeting moment there was clarity in Derek's eyes, and then it was gone. Katrina groaned inwardly. He knew deep down that she was right, but just decided to ignore the thought. He really was the worst kind of person. Katrina read his face again: he was probably going to say something off-topic now, like some kind of deflection or-

"Yeah you're right. We're not same. You like to talk shit but you don't like to back your words up with actions. Bet you'd be too afraid to 1v1 me in the arena later."

Katrina wanted to tear her hair out. "So unless someone's willing to get into a physical fight, they're not allowed to talk? What kind of logic is that?"

"Ha! See? I knew you couldn't do it," he smiled victoriously. Katrina gritted her teeth. This was always the worst part, when they would just walk away, acting smugly as if they'd won an argument. Well not this time.

"Fine." 

Derek turned around, and Katrina met his gaze. 

"I'll do your stupid fight," she said.

Hal grabbed her shoulder. "No. This argument started when I corrected him. Therefore if anyone should be fighting him, it's me."

"Pfft. Fine. A 2v2 then," Derek said before Katrina could tell Hal no. Behind him, his training partner stepped up. "Ray and I will face the two of you."

"You mean the three of us" Valerie suddenly jumped between Hal and Katrina, putting her arms around the two of them in a show of solidarity. "Count me in too."

"Wha- who even are you?" Derek stammered, taken aback by the fact that Katrina apparently had more than one friend. "Aren't you like just her sister or something?"

"I'm not just her sister...I'm her roommate!" Valerie answered defiantly, then hastily added, "...and her friend. I'm also her friend. Should've led with that part."

Derek groaned in exasperation. "Okay fine. Now unless anyone else wants to fight..." He paused, waiting for anyone else to say something. Nobody did. "...a 3v3 it is then. Me and my friends versus you three bullies. Meet us at the arena: 6pm."

Katrina had a few more choice words for him but instead she simply replied with, "Alright. 6pm it is."

They glowered at each other for one last time before parting ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Katrina and Valerie began to head back towards "their spot."
> 
> "Psst...come on!" Valerie whispered loudly, motioning for them to follow them.
> 
> "But why?" asked Hal, as neither he nor Arthur really felt like moving to a different spot.
> 
> "Because...well you know!" She cried, as if it should've been obvious, then gestured at Derek and Marlon. "Because we just said we'd fight with them later so if you stay there it'll be super awkward and stuff."
> 
> Hal and Arthur exchanged glances, then started moving over, neither of them able to refute Valerie's impeccable middle school logic.


	16. The Vesta House Gang vs The Sons of Poseidon

During the next break, the gang had gathered at Vesta House as usual, though this time instead of studying as they normally did, they pent their time talking about "what a total dick" Derek was, as middle school kids sometimes do during their free time.

"I mean the guy just goes 'Uhuh I bet you wouldn't fight me so therefore you're wrong," Katrina said, in a surprisingly accurate imitation of Derek's voice. "But I can tell he doesn't really mean it so of course I call his bluff. I mean what kind of idiot challenges someone to a fight when they don't actually mean it?"

"Indeed," Hal agreed. "He also seems to be unusually stubborn and belligerent when having his beliefs challenged. I'm typically opposed to resolving conflicts through violence but I suppose in this case I was reluctant to back down because I didn't want you to fight my battles for me and I wanted to stand up for what I believed in." He paused, then added, "In addition, "fighting the bully" appears to be a popular trope in fictional stories with school settings. Perhaps this may end up becoming a valuable experience. What about you Valerie? What made you want to join the fight?"

"Me? I'm just a simple girl. I see someone picking on my friend and of course I'm gonna fight. Plus....I dunno, I just thought it might be fun. Come on Arthur you should do it."

At this point, Arthur began to feel very self-conscious because the truth was he didn't want to fight and he felt bad for not wanting to fight. Everyone else had stood up to Derek, even having their own reasons for why they were willing to fight him whereas he had been too intimidated to even say anything to him. The fact that this ordeal started because he had been too weak and let his staff slip out of his hands just made him feel even worse about the whole thing.

Apparently Katrina read all this on his face because she suddenly said, "Uh I mean you don't have to if you don't want to. Really, it's fine. We don't want to peer pressure you into doing anything and honestly this wasn't your fault. Derek's just an asshat and we probably would've ended up fighting him even if you hadn't bonked him on the head...or at least I would have anyway."

The rest of the day passed painfully slowly for everyone except Arthur, as they eagerly anticipated the fight to come that evening. Finally, it was 6pm; the four of them showed up at the arena as planned. They learned that Derek's "friends" were actually just some of his older brothers whom he'd told about their "bullying." Arthur headed towards the stands where several students were seated already: kids he recognized from their class who must have overheard them talking about a fight, some children of Poseidon (no doubt Derek had told his brothers and sisters about the fight), and several other students Arthur didn't recognize, probably some students Katrina had offended and now wanted to see her get beaten up. As he took his seat, he overheard several students talking.

"So what's this fight about anyway?"

"I heard that during PE, one of Zeus kids hit one of Poseidon kids in the back of the head with his staff. And then, when the Poseidon kid tried to defuse the tension with a joke, another one of the Zeus kids came in and tried to pick a fight with him and then that new Athena girl...you know the one that hates everyone?...she also joined in on the bullying and challenged the Poseidon kid to a fight. So he got a few of his brothers together and now the sons of Poseidon are gonna fight the bullies."

Arthur's face flushed. That wasn't what had happened at all! He wanted badly to set the record straight, to explain that he hadn't intentionally hit Derek, and more importantly, that his friends weren't the bullies in all this. And he would have except well...it was just that there were so many people and they probably wouldn't believe him anyway and he should just keep his mouth shut. Yes, it was for the best, he told himself...so then why did he still feel the burning of shame?

Meanwhile, down at the arena, the other three were preparing for their fight. They all agreed that each of them would use quarterstaffs, as none of them had actually trained with "real weapons" before and nobody wanted to get seriously injured. Valerie, Hal, and Katrina stood on one side of the arena. On the other side stood the Poseidon boys: aside from Derek and ray there was also third brother. He looked older than all of them, was tall and handsome, with dark brown hair and ocean blue eyes. According to Hal, his name was Marlon and he was a revered by all the other students for being a great hero who had already been on several quests. He wasn't the brightest, but he had lots of heart and was known for fighting for those who were too weak to stand up for themselves...which was apparently what he thought he was doing right now.

"Derek told me all about you bullies. I'm going to make you regret what you did!" When they didn't seem very intimidated, he added, "You know I eat little pieces of shit like you for breakfast!"

This didn't have the intended effect, but rather it made Valerie bust out laughing. "You eat little pieces of shit for breakfast?!"

Marlon paused. "....n-no!" he yelled, a bit too late.

The fight was about to begin now. From the stands, Arthur looked down at his friends. Hal gave him a stoic little nod. Valerie waved wildly at him, grinning. And Katrina...

...Katrina gave him a stern acknowledging stare. There was something vaguely familiar about it. Suddenly Arthur remembered: it was the same look she'd given him last week. Her words echoed in his mind...

"If we're the last ones there we'll have to sit next to Tommy Ato and he always smells like stale ketchup for some reason."

No, not that part. The part before that.

"You shouldn't be afraid to speak your mind."

Yes, that part. Arthur thought that maybe it was about time he took her advice.

Back down at the arena, the fight was just about to begin when suddenly...

"Wait!"

The six of them turned to see Arthur sprinting towards them.

"Wait...guys...come on," he said, huffing and puffing. "This whole thing is stupid.

"Uh...yeah?" said Valerie. "It's a middle-school fight. Of course it's stupid."

"But don't you see?" he cried. "We don't have to do this!"

He turned to Derek. "I'm sorry I hit you in the back of the head. The truth is I was tired and it just slipped out of my hands by accident. Now...can you call off the fight?"

All eyes were now on Derek; everyone held their breaths. Finally, after a tense silence...

"Alright," said Derek. "We're cool."

A wave of relief washed over Arthur. Now that he'd finally said it, it seemed so easy and he even felt a bit silly for lacking confidence earlier. Really now that he thought about it, he should just approach everything with the same level of self assuredne-

Arthur's thoughts and newfound confidence came to an abrupt end when he suddenly felt something strike the back of his head. There force of the blow made him stumble and fall face first into the dirt. Through the sharp pain in the back of his head, he could just barely make out a very annoying voice saying "Oops! It was an accident guys, it just slipped out of my hands because I was tired!"

That was when all hell (or "all Hades," as they were apparently supposed to say now) broke lose. Upon seeing Derek attack Arthur while the latter's back was turned, Valerie and Katrina instantly moved to retaliate; however, before they could close the gap on Derek, they were blocked by Marlon. At the same time, Hal and Ray began to fight.

Arthur picked himself up from the ground. There was still a dull pain radiating through his head. He looked around him, still dazed. He could see Hal on the defensive, being pushed back by Ray's aggressive attacks. Katrina and Valerie seemed to just managing to keep Marlon busy. Last but not least, Derek, who had just noticed Arthur getting up, was now running directly at him with his staff pointed at him.

Arthur's mind instantly cleared as he quickly leapt to the aside to dodge the attack. Derek pushed forward, jabbing the spear at him as Arthur did his best to avoid getting hit. Luckily for him, it seemed that out of the three Poseidon boys, Derek was the weakest and least skilled of them all. Despite this, Arthur was still unarmed and he knew he couldn't dodge Derek's attacks forever so he had to do something. He went with his instincts and simply grabbed Derek's staff when he tried jabbing him with it again. The two of them were now caught in an awkward tug of war over the staff. 

Arthur had never read, watched, or heard of any fight where someone simply grabbed the other person's weapon. He wasn't really sure what he was supposed to do now so he simply held on as tightly as he could, afraid of what would happen if he let go. Derek kicked at his shins angrily, and Arthur tried to sidestep his kicks, suddenly feeling rather self-conscious about the fact that he was involved in what must look like the stupidest fight ever. Derek tried pulling harder, but to no avail. Finally, having apparently reached an all new low, he moved his grip up the staff towards Arthur and began prying at Arthur's fingers while still trying to pull it out of his hands.

"Come on...I thought you said...this just happens...on accident...right?" said Derek, as he strained to loosen Arthur's grip. "Just...let...go!"

Arthur's felt one finger loosen, and then a second. He began to think about how much he didn't want to let go, how much he didn't want Derek to win, and as the third finger loosened, he felt a familiar tingling sensation. There was a loud zap, and Derek suddenly jumped back from him, and Arthur stumbled backwards due to his own inertia. He recovered, and was shocked to see that Derek had fallen unconscious, and now lied spread eagle on the ground in front of him, a bit of drool leaking from the side of his mouth. Everyone in the stands was looking at him. His friends and the Poseidon boys had even stopped to see what had happened.

"Woo! Nice one Arthur!" said Valerie as she caught her breath. "See?...Told you....this would be fun!"

Katrina had a different reaction. "Arthur....what the fuck?!"

"I'm sorry!" Arthur stammered. He hadn't meant to electrocute Derek, it just came out. "I...I didn't know...I didn't mean to-"

"What no, don't apologize! Do it again!" Marlon jabbed at her again, and the fight resumed.

"But..." Arthur faltered. Speaking up for himself had already brought him out of his comfort zone, to go so far as to hurt someone just didn't seem possible. And yet, despite believing this, as he looked around at Valerie's unconscious body and Hal and Katrina on the brink of defeat, he knew deep down that if he stood by and did nothing, things could only get worse. If one side had to win this fight, wouldn't it be better if it was the "right" side?

Arthur made his decision.

Ray and Hal were the nearest. As sons of the Big Three who were the same age and had received the same amount of training, physically and skill-wise they were evenly matched. But whereas Hal was unemotional and had no desire to actually injure anyone, Ray was fueled by spite and determination "to not lose to a nerd." As a result, Ray had managed to back Hal up against the edge of the arena, leaving no space left behind him. Arthur reached them just a little too late and watched as Ray slammed his staff into Hal's stomach, causing him to keel over. Arthur felt a tinge of rage as he grabbed Ray roughly by the wrist and electrocuted him. Ray went down. 

This left just Marlon, who was still fighting Valerie and Katrina. Fighting him was a peculiar experience for the two girls, to say the least. Valerie's super intuition told her exactly what she needed to do to beat him, and Katrina was able to anticipate every move he made from reading his face; however, he was simply too strong and fast for the both of them to do anything other than hold him off as long as they could. Valerie discovered this the hard way when she shot her string at his left hand to restrict his movement ("Ha! I gotchu!") only to find out that this allowed him to pull her closer to him ("Oh no no no no no no no!") allowing him to send her staff flying out of her hand before smacking her in the face, knocking her out. With Valerie down, Marlon was able to make short work of Katrina, and Arthur watched as Marlon knocked her out as well.

Now it was just the two of them.

Marlon, having seen what Arthur was capable of, was warily keeping his distance, trying to come up with the optimal strategy for taking his opponent down. Arthur's thought process was much simpler: he was just scared of fighting Marlon. Could he grab Marlon's hands? Unlikely. He wasn't _that_ stupid. But maybe there was some other way to defeat him...

The two of them circled each other, neither of them willing to make the first move. The entire arena was silent, and everyone in the stands was leaning forward slightly. Until finally...

Marlon jabbed his spear forward. Arthur dove at his feet.

"What the...?!" Marlon said with genuine surprise as Arthur grabbed onto his ankle. Instinctively he lifted his feet and tried to shake him off but Arthur held on. Marlon raised his staff to bring it down on Arthur as he summoned the energy to his fingertips and...

There was a loud zap, and Marlon fell over. Arthur let go of his ankle and slowly got up. The fight was officially over. He had won; he had actually won! He looked around. Everyone around him was down on the ground. The people in the stands were quiet; they seemed disappointed by the anticlimactic ending.

"What the fuck was that?!" one guy shouted. "That was the weakest shit I'd ever seen in my life!"

With the fight over, most of the people in the stands began leaving quietly. A few of them stayed around to help the injured. They brought over cups of water and poured them on the Poseidon boys until they felt better. For Hal, Valerie, and Katrina it was more complicated: several of the other students helped carry the three of them towards the Big House. There the three of them laid in the Big House's infirmary, where they were revived and fed ambrosia and nectar. 

"Did we win?" Valerie asked when her health was restored. Arthur told her that they had. "Wait we did? Really?! You beat Marlon?! Er I mean uh..." she looked around nervously. "Yeah! Of course you did! I never doubted it for even a second!"

"Yeah...good job," Katrina said.

"Yeah...thanks I guess," Arthur blushed, feeling embarrassed. He hadn't done anything really, just...ran around touching people, nothing worth being proud of at all. He looked down at his shoes.

"No really, I mean it," Arthur looked up, and Katrina looked straight into his eyes to let him know she was serious.

That was surprising. Although they had been friends for a few weeks, he still wasn't completely used to the fact that she could read his thoughts. Actually he wasn't used to people know what he was thinking in general. He usually kept his thoughts to himself, and when someone complimented him he tended to just brush it aside immediately. It suddenly occurred to him that Katrina was the only person who knew how he felt about things...and that she cared.

"Yeah...thanks I guess," he didn't really know what else to say, and that was fine. He didn't need to say any more than that.


End file.
